Biden slams Trump’s ‘greenlight’ to Putin and calls ex-president’s threat against Nato ‘predictable’

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President Biden on Sunday hit out at Donald Trump’s threat to abandon Nato member states to Russian attacks if they don’t spend enough on defence, calling the disgraced ex-president’s remarks “appalling and dangerous”.

On Saturday, Mr Trump told rally goers in Conway, South Carolina that he’d “encourage” Russia to move aggressively against Nato countries that don’t meet a years-old two per cent GDP defence spending target, which he inaccurately described as if the targets were dues to one of his golf clubs.

He said he’d told a Nato head of state he would not support invoking the transatlantic alliance’s mutual defence provisions in such a case.

‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ ... ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay,”  he said.

In a statement released by Mr Biden’s re-election campaign, the president touted how he has pushed the US to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Nato as the defensive alliance has grown “bigger and stronger than ever ... in defense of democracy against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian aggression”.

He also called US support for Nato and American leadership “critical to keeping the American people safe here at home”.

“If my opponent, Donald Trump, is able to regain power, he is making it clear as day that he will abandon our NATO allies if Russia attacks and allow Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ with them,” Mr Biden said, adding that serving as America’s commander-in-chief is an “ultimate responsibility” that should “weigh heavily” on whoever occupies that high office.

“Donald Trump’s admission that he intends to give Putin a greenlight for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine, and to expand his aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States are appalling and dangerous,” he said.

“Sadly, they are also predictable coming from a man who is promising to rule as a dictator like the ones he praises on day one if he returns to the oval office”.

The US election is on 5 November.