Delivering a keynote address at a Turning Point event in Arizona on Friday, April 17, Trump declared that the US must depend on itself.
Trump said: “If NATO teaches us any one thing, and I hope you all watched because they weren’t there for us, if it teaches us any one thing: we have to rely on ourselves.
“We can’t rely on outside countries and outside sources.”
Trump has repeatedly rounded on NATO allies for not supporting the US war effort in Iran in the way he would have considered appropriate.
It has been previously reported by The Mirror that the Trump administration was weighing up a plan to penalise certain NATO members it believes failed to adequately support the US and Israel throughout the Iran conflict.
The US and Israel carried out joint strikes on a number of key Iranian targets since February 28, with Iran retaliating by launching attacks on multiple sites across the Middle East, plunging the region into turmoil, disrupting air travel and sending global markets into turmoil.
A short-term ceasefire is currently in place.
Since launching military action in Iran, the president has branded US partners as “cowards” and labelled NATO “a paper tiger”.
He sharpened his hostile rhetoric towards NATO following pushback from several alliance nations over his demands to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz trade route, through which 20% of global oil traded passes, in a bid to ease soaring worldwide oil prices.
Trump further remarked during his address at the Turning Point event on Friday: “Most people, you know this recent situation, they wanted to do it, but they said, ‘Let’s not get involved.’ Sometimes you have to get involved.”
“You have no choice but to get involved.”
NATO, a 32-member alliance established in 1949 to counteract the threat of Soviet aggression, concentrates on safeguarding member nations through a collective defence pledge, whereby an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.
Fears are mounting that Trump may be gearing up to pull out of the alliance entirely.
