Donald Trump said at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 that if Europe was attacked, the U.S. would not come to its support, Politico reported on Jan. 10, citing European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton.
Trump is currently ahead in the polls to become the Republican nomination for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, which is set to be held in November.
Speaking at an event in the European Parliament in Brussels on Jan. 9, Breton said that Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that "you need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you."
Breton, who was also present at the meeting in Davos, said that Trump also claimed that "NATO is dead," and that the U.S. will "quit" the alliance.
"You owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense," Trump said, according to Breton.
"That was a big wake-up call and he may come back," Breton said at the event on Jan. 9. "Now more than ever, we know that we are on our own."
Trump in a second term would likely appoint loyalists in key roles in the military and intelligence community, allowing him to implement more isolationist policies, multiple U.S. officials told the press on Dec. 18.
Lance Luo
