Trump telling Europe to pay for defense

Hillary Clinton excoriated Donald Trump over his lack of understanding on many facets of foreign policy. One that resonates positively with Trump supporters is his disregard of NATO and the European nations that comprise the majority of the organizations makeup.

Allies are important for world stability, but it is those allies' very lack of self-awareness and responsibility to that stability that Trump has rightly identified.

The grand social experiment Europe became after the end of World War II was fueled and has been maintained first by the Marshall Act that helped rebuild the devastation of the Great War and now the military might and treasure of the U.S.

The European Union has a population of 514 million, with a GDP, in U.S. dollars of $18.5 trillion, mirroring U.S. economic performance of $17.4 trillion, with a third less the population at 315 million.

Yet 80,000 U.S. military personal are stationed in the E.U. One may argue, as Donald Trump is asserting, that the E.U. is more than capable to man and fund its own defense or if not up to the task, certainly pay for the right to have a foreign occupying force (U.S.) do it for them.

The reluctance to spend in their own defense while continuing to socially engineer their economies and citizens is at the very heart of Trump's foreign policy bromides as it relates to NATO.

Experiment all you want, but not at U.S. expense is what informs Trump's questioning of the continued usefulness of the alliance as presently constructed.

Steve Sarich

Grayslake