NATO Country Leader Issues Warning About Second Trump Presidency

Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves issued a warning on Tuesday about what a possible second Donald Trump term would mean for NATO countries.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and President Joe Biden are set for a rematch of 2020 as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war fuels tensions between NATO and the Kremlin. NATO leaders have increasingly warned that direct conflict with Moscow is a realistic danger. Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials have repeatedly threatened nuclear escalation against Kyiv and its Western partners since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Ilves told The New Republic on Tuesday what a possible second Trump term would mean as the Russia-Ukraine war continues.

Noting Trump's February remarks on NATO, which sparked backlash after he suggested he would "encourage" Russia to attack NATO countries falling short of guideline financial contributions to the alliance, Ilves said the comments "conjures up" graphic images eastern Europe has associated with Russia.

Newsweek has reached out to Ilves and Trump's spokesperson via email for comment.

"What you've heard is fairly widely shared and feared across not only Central and Eastern Europe but the rest of Europe as well," Ilves said. "The general assumption, especially after Trump's 'If you don't pay, I'll tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want,' conjures up the images of Bucha, mass killings, torture, rape, etc., we have come to associate with Russia. It can't be undone."

Ilves continued by warning that if he wins the election, Trump will "abandon Europe and NATO in favor" of Putin, adding that he and others expect transatlantic relations to be at their worst.

"[French President Emmanuel] Macron's Autonomie strategique is purely the result of an understanding—right or wrong—that Trump will abandon Europe and NATO in favor of his strongman buddy Putin," he said.

"Someone who believes Putin more than his own intelligence services [as we saw in his Helsinki meeting] is not someone people in Europe trust. In any case everyone seems to expect that after a Trump victory, transatlantic relations will be worse than they have been since WW2," Ilves wrote in an email.

During a CNN interview in March, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg did not say he was concerned with the political direction the U.S. was headed.

"I expect the United States to continue to be a staunch NATO ally after the elections in November because it is in the U.S. interest to have a strong NATO. NATO is a good deal for the United States because together we represent 50 percent of the world's military and economic might and also make the United States safer," Stoltenberg said.

Biden slammed Trump's comments on NATO, called them "dumb" and "shameful" while speaking at the White House in February.

"The worst thing is, he means it," Biden said. "No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly as I can: I never will. For God's sake, it's dumb, it's shameful, it's dangerous. It's un-American."

Trump has since continued to double down on his comments taking aim at Biden's State of the Union address, writing on Truth Social: "Putin only invaded Ukraine, because he has no respect for Biden. Would have never happened under the Trump Administration, and for four years it didn't happen!"

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