Trump would consider letting Japan and South Korea build nuclear arsenals

Donald Trump would consider allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear arsenals instead of depending on the U.S. for their protection against North Korea and China, he said in an interview with The New York Times published Saturday.

{mosads}“There’ll be a point at which we’re just not going to be able to do it anymore,” Trump said, pointing at what he calls a “severely depleted” military.

“We have nuclear arsenals which are in very terrible shape,” he said. “They don’t even know if they work.”

“If the United States keeps on its path, its current path of weakness, they’re going to want to have that anyway with or without me discussing it, because I don’t think they feel very secure in what’s going on with out country,” he said of Japan and South Korea.

Trump said the U.S. cannot always “be the policeman of the world” and said North Korea “probably” has nuclear weapons

“And, would I rather have North Korea have them with Japan sitting there having them also? You may very well be better off if that’s the case,” he said. 

“We have a nuclear world now,” he said, while also criticizing the U.S.’s agreement with Japan.

“If we are attacked, they don’t have to do anything,” he said. “If they’re attacked, we have to go out with full force … That’s a pretty one-sided agreement, right there.” 

Trump also said that he would consider pulling U.S. forces out of Japan and South Korea if they don’t step up contributions. 

“The answer is not happily, but the answer is yes. We cannot afford to be losing vast amounts of billions of dollars on all of this,” he said. “I have a feeling that they’d up the ante very much. I think they would, and if they wouldn’t, I would really have to say yes.”