On June 27th (local time), President Biden refuted former President Trump’s claim on defense cost sharing, claiming that the U.S. is shouldering an excessive burden, by calling it “foolish” and stating “our strength comes from our allies.” He cited South Korea and Japan as the key allies.
Biden and Trump, who will face each other in the upcoming November election, sparred over security issues during the first TV debate hosted by CNN. Trump claimed, “The Atlantic is separating Europe and the U.S. Just looking at the defense spending, there is a difference of hundreds of billions of dollars. Thanks to me, the burden of defense spending has significantly increased for European countries.”
Biden retorted, “He is only making foolish remarks,” and launched a counterattack against Trump, who linked security to the issue of defense cost-sharing. Biden further pointed out that Trump “was the one who wanted to withdraw from NATO.”
He added, “Our strength comes from our allies. We didn’t directly experience the major war in Europe (Russia-Ukraine) because of the Atlantic, but what would happen if Putin continues to dominate NATO?” stating concerns over Putin continuously mentioning the nuclear war.
Biden emphasized, “If Trump continues to let Putin take over Ukraine and allow the attack to extend to Poland, a NATO ally, this problem will come to us.”
He further stated, “Fifty other countries around the world are supporting Ukraine, including Japan and South Korea. This is because they understand that the invasion of Ukraine poses a serious threat to world peace.”