Europe can't count on Trump, he once vowed not to help Europe if it was attacked

European leaders know that if push comes to shove and Russia decides to attack other European countries and Donald Trump is president of the United States, they will be on their own. 

Former President Donald Trump told European leaders the United States wouldn’t come to their aid if the European Union was militarily attacked in 2020, according to allegations from one of the continent's top officials. 

Thierry Breton is the European Commissioner for Internal Markets and  said that Trump vowed he wouldn’t come to the aid of his European Union if it were ever attacked while he was serving as US president. 

"You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you," Trump allegedly told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020 according to Breton. 

Breton was relaying the events of a meeting that took place during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020, and shared that Trump planned to quit NATO and thought that the United States was owed $400 billion. 

“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO,” Breton recalled Trump saying while speaking at an event hosted by the Renew Europe political party, according to Reuters. "And by the way, you owe me $400 billion."

Breton claimed that Trump believed the United States was owed $400 billion because Germany had not been paying its fair share, “you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense," Trump allegedly said. 

When Reuters reached out to Ursula von der Leyen to see if her recollection of the meeting matched those of Breton, a spokesperson for the European Commission President said that Von der Leyen declined to comment. 

“Out of principle the President NEVER discloses what her interlocutors have told her during closed door meetings,” the European Commission President spokesperson wrote in an email. “So we are not going to comment either way.”

The news of Trump’s alleged comments have came on the heels of his resurgence in the 2024 election polls, which show that the former president has a real shot at beating Joe Biden in the race if Trump is selected as the Republican presidential nominee. 

The reality of the situation in the United States has worried leaders in Europe according to Politico, which reported that Brussels was “rife with fear about the possibility Trump will return to the U.S. presidency.”

"That was a big wake-up call and he may come back," Breton said about Trump and the things he shared during his meeting with EU leaders at Davos in 2020. "So now more than ever, we know that we are on our own, of course.”

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By European Parliament

“We are a member of NATO, almost all of us, of course, we have allies, but we have no other options but to drastically increase this pillar in order to be ready [for] whatever happens,” Breton added. 

What could happen is still up for debate. However, we know that even if Trump wins the 2024 election, he won’t be able to pull the United States out of NATO after a bill introduced in December barred any US president from unilaterally leaving the alliance.  

Even if Trump couldn’t leave NATO if he won a second term, he would likely stay true to his 2020 vow and not assist the European Union if it were attacked—though only time will tell what the ramifications of a second Trump term would be for Europe. 

Biden’s campaign was quick to call out the former president’s alleged comments, and NBC News quoted a Biden spokesperson as saying: "The idea that he would abandon our allies if he doesn’t get his way underscores what we already know to be true about Donald Trump: The only person he cares about is himself.”