A decade after Russia was expelled from the Group of Eight for invading and illegally annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, President Donald Trump says he wants to reverse the decision and permit Russia to rejoin the group of the world’s major industrialized democracies, while also slashing America’s defense budget by 50 percent.
“I'd love to have them back, I think it was a mistake to throw them out,” said Trump, who blamed then-president Barack Obama for the collective decision by the world’s largest industrialized economies to exclude Russia from what had become the Group of Seven, of G7, after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Russia was invited to join in an attempt to integrate it more tightly with the global economy.
The American president made the shocking declaration in the Oval Office during a marathon question-and-answer session with reporters, telling the assembled press that he blamed his predecessor, former president Joe Biden, for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to order a large-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
He falsely suggested that Biden had provoked the war by supporting a path to NATO membership for Kyiv even though NATO membership has been on the table for Ukraine since 2008, when then-president George W. Bush said he "strongly supported" Ukraine as a future candidate to join the defensive alliance.
“I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow them, just in their position, could allow them to join NATO. I don't see that happening,” he said.
Trump, who spoke to Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, also told reporters he believes Putin “wants peace” and said he trusts the Russian leader, who according to a Senate intelligence committee report ordered Russian intelligence to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
He said he wants to restart denuclearization and arms control talks with Russia and China with the aim of reducing American defense spending by 50 percent.
“At some point when things settle down, I'm going to meet with China, and I'm going to meet with Russia, in particular, those two, and I'm going to say there's no reason for us to be spending almost a trillion dollars on military,” he said.
He added that he’d like to come to an agreement between all three countries to cut existing military spending by 50 percent.
“I want to say, let's cut our military budget in half. And we can do that,” he said.
Trump has frequently blamed the Biden administration and the prior Obama administration for the conduct of the war that Putin started by invading Ukraine.
Pressed on what Russia should have to give up in any negotiated settlement, Trump declined to say that Moscow should give up anything at all and instead cast yet more blame on prior presidential administrations.
“Russia has gotten themselves into something that I think they wish they didn't. If I were president, it would not have happened, absolutely would not have happened, and it didn't happen for four years. If you look at what has taken place under President Bush, they lost a lot under President Obama. They lost Crimea. Under Biden, it looks like they could lose the whole thing. Under Trump, they lost nothing. Ukraine lost nothing. They didn't give up anything,” he said.
“Now, Russia has taken over a pretty big chunk of territory, and they also have said from day one, long before President Putin, they've said they cannot have Ukraine be a NATO. They said that very strongly. I actually think that that was the thing that caused the start of the war. And Biden said it, and Zelensky said it, and I think that was one of the reasons, one of the starts of the war. But from long before Putin, they said you cannot have, you cannot have Ukraine going in, in any way, into NATO. And I start from that standpoint. I think everybody knew that now, if a better deal can be negotiated, if they're able to make a deal where they can do that, that's fine with me. I really don't care.”
