The Washington Post’s editorial board responded this week to a series of terrorist attacks in Brussels by training its sights on billionaire businessman Donald Trump, and rebuking the GOP candidate’s foreign policy.
The Brussels suicide bombings, which have so far claimed the lives of 34 people, “revealed a crucial divide among U.S. presidential candidates about what this country must do to protect itself,” the board wrote.
On one side, there are people like President Obama, who pledged from his trip to Cuba to support Belgium for as long as it takes, it added.
“Against them is the radical isolationism of Donald Trump, from whom the Brussels bloodshed prompted another call to ‘close up our borders,’ and who on Monday questioned the value of U.S. support for NATO allies such as Belgium,” the board wrote.
The Islamic State took credit Tuesday for the Brussels bombings, which came just days after authorities had apprehended one of the masterminds of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.
“More than at any time since 1940, America’s commitment to its European allies is at issue in a presidential campaign. The tragic events of Brussels illuminate the folly of Mr. Trump’s position. The Islamic State has targeted all Western democracies, along with Israel and the Sunni states of the Middle East; it regards Belgians and Americans equally as enemies. Destroying the group — as Mr. Trump says is necessary — cannot be done without fighting its tendrils wherever they appear — in Europe as well as the Middle East, in Africa and in cyberspace,” the Post’s editorial board wrote. “However much they are reinforced, borders will provide no protection to Americans if the jihadists are not defeated elsewhere.”
“Mr. Trump protests that NATO ‘is costing us a fortune’ and that the United States is no longer a rich country. Never mind that the nation is far richer than it was when the alliance was set up in 1949, or that the national debt as well as spending on defense are lower as a portion of the economy. To defeat the Islamic State without NATO’s help would impose huge costs on Americans. Britain, France and Germany, among others, contribute materially to the war against the terrorist entity in Iraq and Syria, not to mention NATO member Turkey,” it added.
Also, it added, Trump recent claim that he sees no advantage in maintaining U.S. foreign bases means losing such facilities in places like Turkey would make it more difficult to carry out an air campaign in Iraq and Syria.
“Mr. Trump is not the only one to complain about the way the defense burden is divided among NATO’s members,” the Post wrote. “President Obama has also griped about ‘free riders.’ The next U.S. president must keep pressing allies to spend more on defense and to commit to operations against Islamic State bases in places such as Libya. But she or he must also accept that the alliance won’t function without U.S. leadership — which inevitably means a larger role militarily and financially as well as politically.”
Trump has asked before: “Why are we always the one that’s leading?”
To that, the newspaper’s editorial board responded, “[I]n the absence of that American commitment, chaos like that seen in Brussels will soon cross even our most fortified borders.”
The Post is not alone in turning its attention to Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels bombings: The editorial boards of the New York Times and USA Today did the same this week.
