Sen. Mitt Romney says another Trump presidency would damage American relationship with NATO

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said in an interview on CNN this week that if Donald Trump were elected president again, NATO states would seriously reconsider their relationship with the United States.

Romney, who was the GOP candidate for president in 2012, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt “If [Trump] were to come back as the U.S. president, I think it would represent a pretty dramatic departure for the world, and they would rethink whether they can count on the United States to lead NATO, to lead other nations as they push back against China and against Russia.”

Romney went on to say Trump’s “America first” approach when he was in office had “frightened” NATO members, and that the former president’s disdainful language regarding NATO had caused allies to question whether they could rely on the United States.

“Well, I think what’s happened to NATO is that they have said, ‘Can we rely on the U.S.?,” Romney said. “And is this America First idea, which is the president saying to everybody, ‘Hey, go off and do your own thing,’ I think that approach is one that frightens other members of NATO, and they wonder, are we committed to NATO and to our mutual defense, or are we all going to go off on our own?”