Trump’s ‘outrageous’ Nato comments make allies ‘wonder whether they can rely on America’, warns Romney

Mitt Romney has told The Independent that former President Donald Trump’s comments about how he would urge Russia to attack Nato countries who don’t spend enough on defence makes US allies wonder if they can “rely on America”.

Mr Romney’s comments come after Mr Trump’s rally in Conway, South Carolina on Sunday, where he said: “If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” Mr Trump said, claiming to remember a Nato member state leader asking him during his presidency. He then claimed to have responded: “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”

Mr Romney, now a Utah Senator after being the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and serving as the governor of Massachusetts, told The Independent on Monday: “He says outrageous things to get people riled up. It works at the rallies. Unfortunately, it also has an impact around the world where our friends wonder whether they can rely on America.”

This comes after reports regarding Mr Trump telling top European Union officials that the US would never help Europe if it was attacked.

Thierry Breton, a French EU commissioner, said during a roundtable discussion in Brussels early last month that Mr Trump made the comments in January 2020 when speaking to the president of the commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen, a former German defence minister.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you,” Mr Trump said, according to Mr Breton. “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO.”

“And by the way, you owe me $400bn, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defence,” Mr Trump added at the time, Mr Breton said.

“Out of