Speaking at a rally two days ago, Donald Trump invented an anecdote. He said he had a conversation with the head of state of one of the EU countries, with whom he discussed military spending. According to an agreement between NATO members, each country has to allocate 2 per cent of its GDP to armaments in order to ensure full reliability, modernity and efficiency in the event of conflict. Well, not even Germany reaches this quota. None of the larger countries affected by the pandemic reach it, because that money is used to help economic recovery.

Trump insults the European politician and tells him: you thug, if I were president, not only would the United States not help you in the event of a Russian invasion, but I would tell Putin to do ‘whatever the fuck he wants’ with your country[1] . Needless to say, this statement, in a country that has always been prone to closing in on itself, unless it decides to ‘export democracy’ by cannonade and terrorist massacres, gets the enthusiastic approval of a large part of the population.

This speech, made on Sunday in South Carolina, where he is speaking to gain the votes needed to secure the Republican presidential nomination, comes just a few hours after Vladimir Putin’s interview/commentary with Trump’s close friend, former Fox journalist Tucker Carlson, takes more than half an hour to campaign in favour of the American palooka[2] . According to analysts in Washington, the possibility of Trump returning to the White House is real, it is thought that he already has a solid majority. The only hope is that it will be the more enlightened Republicans and Democrats, who know very well what to expect, who cut him off, but the polls give him an unbridgeable lead: three out of four voters[3] .

Nightmare scenarios lie ahead for us Europeans. Speaking to Carlson, Putin, smiling, said that, once the war in Ukraine is over, he has no interest in attacking other European countries – unless provocations come from those countries. Translated in a nutshell, as the Russian boxer said to Rocky Balboa: I must break you[4] .

Because for Putin everything can be a provocation: the proposal of the Baltic countries to increase supply controls for Kaliningrad[5] , the dispute with Japan over the Kuril Islands[6] , the secession of Transnistria[7] , and even controversial internal policy decisions of European states mean, for the Moscow regime, which claims to be the heir not of the Soviet Union, but of the Tsarist Empire[8] , can be challenged on the principle that, by inheritance, Moscow would have reasonable historical claims on Italy and other Western countries.

As we have already written, NATO has announced its fears about the real possibility of a forthcoming World War III[9] . In this light, the fact that the British have already started to prepare[10] , is not a wild exaggeration, but a measure of reasonable caution.

USA032

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXm2f-bkQeU ; https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/02/11/donald-trump-nato-russia-do-what-they-want-acostanr-vpx.cnn  

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKigbrcGNg ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c02QU1MfDlc

[3] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/

[4] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22ti+spy+in+two%22#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:25418801,vid:7yhL8qTU-No,st:0

[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/11/kaliningrad-proposes-ban-on-movement-of-goods-from-baltic-states

[6] https://web.archive.org/web/20090621085501/http://www.ln.mid.ru/ns-vnpop.nsf/osn_copy/511967C89F5D135EC325704300315459

[7] https://it.euronews.com/my-europe/2014/05/30/la-transnistria-punta-ad-aderire-alla-russia

[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IWWAIS-tE4

[9] THE INDUSTRY PLANS WORLD WAR III – The Global Pitch

[10] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-army-overhaul-former-soldiers-b2376073.html