A decade after Russia was expelled from the Group of Eight for invading and illegally annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, President Donald Trump wants to reverse the decision and permit Russia to rejoin the group of the world’s major industrialized democracies.
“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 Eight 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 Zelenskyy 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 with all the three leaders 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.
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