Much of NATO’s progress can be attributed to the leadership of President Donald Trump, Jim Townsend, Former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO, says.
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00:00I mean, with hindsight, was President Trump good for NATO in the first term?
00:04Well, I think you can make a case that he was, you know, with a lot of hindsight. I
00:11wouldn't have said that at the time. But I think it helped prepare the Allies to make
00:16the tough decisions about how to deal with Putin. Spending more money, deploying forces,
00:22increasing the militaries, that kind of thing. I think Trump came in and gave it a real shove.
00:29And in the past number of years, the Alliance wasn't moving as quickly, or Allies weren't
00:35moving as quickly as the Alliance wanted them to move, in terms of dealing with Putin and
00:41dealing with what's happening in Ukraine. When Trump came in, he gave everyone a real
00:45shove, not because of Putin. He gave them a shove because he felt we were being taken
00:50advantage of. So the message was not exactly a message that everyone appreciated, but I
00:56think the shove was kind of needed. And a lot of the progress made by NATO since then
01:02was, could be linked to not just Putin, but also to Trump.