Trump Opposed US Troop Deployment in Korea and Japan During His Presidency

John Kelly "Trump Thinks NATO Has No Meaning"
Former Senior Official "Will Withdraw from NATO if He Wins the Election"

John Kelly, former White House Chief of Staff and a key aide in the Trump administration, revealed that he opposed the stationing of U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan.

According to CNN in the U.S. on the 12th (local time), Kelly made this statement in an interview featured in the upcoming book by CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, The Return of Great Powers, scheduled for release on the 12th of next month.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The four-star general Kelly said, "The point is that Trump thought NATO was meaningless," adding, "He was strongly opposed to stationing troops in South Korea as a deterrent or in Japan as a deterrent."

Earlier, former President Trump made remarks on the 10th targeting NATO allies, stating that if they did not increase their defense spending, the U.S. would not assist them even if attacked by Russia, and would rather encourage Russia to attack.

Kelly recalled that former President Trump considered Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un as "okay guys." He said, "To Trump, it seemed as if we were provoking them," and that Trump believed "If NATO did not exist, Putin would not have done these things."

John Bolton, former National Security Advisor under the Trump administration, also predicted that if Trump were to regain power, he would try to withdraw from NATO. A former senior official who served in both the Trump and Biden administrations also foresaw in an interview featured in the book that if Trump defeated President Joe Biden in the November election, the U.S. would withdraw from NATO.

The book reports that former senior officials who worked in the Trump administration revealed that at the 2018 NATO summit held in Brussels, the U.S. nearly withdrew from NATO under Trump's orders. CNN also reported concerns expressed that if Trump succeeded in his re-election, U.S. support for Ukraine and Taiwan could also decrease.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.