Boris Johnson rebukes Trump on NATO

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says the United Kingdom takes issue with Donald Trump’s assessment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I think that article five in the NATO treaty of 1948, the doctrine of mutual defense, is incredibly important,” Johnson said Friday in Washington, D.C., according to The Guardian. “It’s something the British government believes in absolutely, fervently, and that we stand behind full square.

{mosads}“Fundamentally, it is the NATO treaty, that doctrine of mutual defense, that has guaranteed the peace in Europe for decades, and will do, I think, for decades to come.”

Johnson added the U.K. is already reassuring other NATO members it will uphold its commitments to the military alliance.

“It’s something I’ve repeated several times already just in the last week to various other countries, and my counterparts in various other countries around Europe, in the Baltic States and elsewhere,” said Johnson, who was in the U.S. for a conference on fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Trump said in an interview published Wednesday there should be conditions to the U.S. helping its NATO allies.

“If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes,” he told The New York Times of helping partners in the alliance.

“This is not 40 years ago,” the GOP presidential nominee added. “We are spending a fortune on military in order to lose $800 billion. That doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

The Times said Trump was specifically addressing whether he would help the Baltic States if Russia attacked.