A Trump-eye view of his world travels
2017-11-19 09:58:43 source：Asahi Shimbun
November 19, 2017
WASHINGTON -- Over the past week, President Donald Trump told a made-up story about his predecessor and revived a distorted claim about NATO that's been gathering dust for some months.
On those occasions and more, his purpose was to illustrate "tremendous success" on his Asia trip, an extended journey that actually produced little visible or immediate change. He also reached back to earlier travels to make his case.
A sampling of his statements toward that goal:
TRUMP, recapping a trip in May: "In Brussels, I urged our NATO allies to do more to strengthen our crucial alliance and set the stage for significant increases in member contributions. Billions and billions of dollars are pouring in because of that initiative. NATO, believe me, is very happy with Donald Trump and what I did."
THE FACTS: No, billions are not pouring into the organization because of Trump. It's not even an issue of financing NATO as an organization. The issue is how much countries in the alliance spend on their own military budgets. That appears to be creeping up, but even so it is hard to find Trump's fingerprints on what is happening.
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