FOREIGN POLICY/NATO: “Before taking office, Donald Trump repeatedly questioned the role of the NATO military alliance, a bedrock of European stability and transatlantic relations since 1949, calling the security pact ‘obsolete’ as recently as last month.
On Monday [2-6-17] he dialed back, adopting the far milder critique that President Obama and other presidents have used.
‘We strongly support NATO,’ President Trump said at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. ‘We only ask that all of the NATO members make their full and proper financial contributions to the NATO alliance, which many of them have not been doing. Many of them have not been even close.’ “
– W.J. Hennigan, “Trump, shifting course, vows support for NATO military alliance,” The Los Angeles Times online, Feb. 6, 2017