South Korea, Japan guarded over Trump's foreign policy plans
March 28, 2016
ricky l4 seconds ago
Donald Trump's proposal not to honor the US nuclear umbrella to protect Japan, S Korea and NATO ---- again prove his naiveness on foreign policy.
The purpose of Nuclear Summit is to prevent nuclear proliferation among Countries so as to prevent more and more Countries from getting nuclear weapons and have a higher tendencies to use them if a threat broke up.
Donald Trumps ignorance and naiveness in foreign affairs - will do exactly the opposite. His shortsightedness and pettiness will induce more smaller Countries to get their own nuclear weapons --- and one day, US will face more Countries targeting their nuclear weapons at one another ---- causing a demise of US, the World and the human races.
Donald Trump ignorance and stupidity knows no bound.
Donald inaction and Donald wrong action - if he ever become a President - will indeed end the human races.
Trump questions NATO, Asia nuclear weapons ahead of Washington summit
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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the media during a news conference at the …
By Toni Clarke
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of NATO, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for decades, and called for the alliance's overhaul days before world leaders convene in Washington.
President Barack Obama will host the Nuclear Security Summit on Thursday and Friday with 56 delegations in attendance. While preventing nuclear terrorism will headline the discussions, Trump's views could be a topic as well, particularly behind the scenes.
In another sharp departure from historic U.S. policy, Trump said in an interview published on Sunday by The New York Times that he would consider letting Japan and South Korea build their own nuclear weapons, rather than rely on America for protection against North Korea and China.
The billionaire businessman, vying to win his party's nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election, also said he might halt U.S. purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless they commit ground troops to fight Islamic State or pay the United States to do so.
"NATO is obsolete," Trump said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
The 28-country North Atlantic Treaty Organization was set up in a different era, Trump said, when the main threat to the West was the Soviet Union. It was ill-suited to fighting terrorism and cost the United States too much, he added.
"We should readjust NATO ... it can be trimmed up and it can be, uh, it can be reconfigured and you can call it NATO, but it's going to be changed," he said.
On March 21, Trump said the United States should slash its financial support for NATO, which was formed in 1949 after World War Two and became a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.
Russia will not attend the upcoming nuclear summit, but Chinese President Xi Jinping will.
Obama said the United States would review international efforts to combat Islamic State in the wake of the Brussels attacks.
Trump's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, called the real estate mogul's views on NATO "catastrophically foolish." Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Cruz said Trump was "out of his depth."
"Abandoning Europe, withdrawing from the most successful military alliance of modern times, it makes no sense at all," Cruz said. "It would hand a massive victory to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, a massive victory to ISIS," the militant group also known as Islamic State.
Cruz said if he were elected president, his approach to Islamic State would be to "carpet bomb them into oblivion."
In the interview, Trump also said he would be willing to withdraw U.S. troops from Japan and South Korea unless the two countries paid more to house and feed them. Japan hosts about 50,000 U.S. troops, while 28,500 are in South Korea.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference in Tokyo on Monday that there had been “no change” to Japan’s policy of not building, possessing or introducing nuclear weapons, and reiterated that no matter who became U.S. president, the U.S.-Japan alliance would remain the core of Japan’s diplomacy and vital for regional and world stability.
South Korea said it had continued to play a positive role in the U.S. military's presence in the country and for the allies' ability to defend against the North and there was no change to its commitment to the mutual defense treaty establishing their military partnership.
(Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington, Linda Sieg in Tokyo an Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Mary Milliken and Nick Macfie)
AFP News
March 28, 2016
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Donald Trump's foreign policy envisaged withdrawing US troops from South Korea and Japan unless they significantly increased their contributions to Washington for maintaining that military presenceMore
South Korea and Japan offered muted reactions Monday to Donald Trump's suggestion that, as president, he would withdraw troops from both countries and allow them to develop their own nuclear arsenal.
There are nearly 30,000 US troops permanently stationed in South Korea and 47,000 in Japan, with little appetite for nuclear weapons in either nation.
Asked to respond to Trump's 'America first' policy to wean nations off US support, South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun said it would be inappropriate to comment on remarks by a US presidential candidate.
But he stressed there was no change to Seoul's position that the South Korea-US Mutual Defence Treaty remained the bedrock of the alliance with Washington.
Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga also declined to react directly to Trump's comments, published Saturday in the New York Times, but insisted the military alliance with Washington was crucial and enduring.
"It is the main pillar of Japan's foreign policy and extremely important for the prosperity and safety of the Asia-Pacific region and the world," Suga told reporters.
He said Japan would maintain its policies against nuclear possession and production, and a ban on foreign nuclear weapons on its territory.
Support for a nuclear-armed South Korea is a minority voice in the country -- although one that grows louder after every nuclear test by North Korea.
Japan is widely seen as having the know-how to produce nuclear arms but, as the only country to have suffered an atomic attack, public opinion is strongly opposed to such a move.
Trump's remarks caused a stir in the media, however, with Japan's mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun daily saying they had generated some government concern.
"If he becomes the US president, it would be a problem for the Japan-US national security system," it quoted an unnamed source close to the government as saying.
South Korean newspapers called Trump's comments dangerous and shocking.
In a strongly-worded editorial, the English-language JoongAng Daily said: "His views -- stemming from a critical lack of understanding about the alliance and security issues -- are utterly short-sighted.
"We are dumbfounded at such myopic views of a leading candidate," it said.
There are few takers in Washington for the idea of nuclear-armed Asian allies, which would set back a longstanding, if repeatedly violated, principle of not allowing new nations into the nuclear club.
Trump said a nuclear-armed South Korea and Japan could be preferable to the current situation in which both countries look to the US nuclear umbrella to counter the threat from North Korea and a rising China.
His foreign policy envisaged withdrawing US troops from the two Asian nations unless they significantly increased their contributions to Washington for maintaining that military presence.
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