Excerpts from Donald Trump’s interview with the New York Times:
On whether he would stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates if those countries refused to send ground troops to fight ISIS:
“If you would go back 15 years ago, and I’m not saying it was only Obama, it was Obama’s getting out, it was other people’s getting in, but you go back 15 years ago, and I say this: If our presidents would have just gone to the beach and enjoyed the ocean and the sun, we would’ve been much better off in the Middle East, than all of this tremendous death, destruction, and you know, monetary loss.”
On whether he would stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates if those countries refused to send ground troops to fight ISIS:
“There’s two answers to that. The answer is, probably yes, but I would also say this: We are not being reimbursed for our protection… You know, Saudi Arabia… the amount of money they have is phenomenal. But we protect countries, and take tremendous monetary hits on protecting countries. … And yet, without us, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist for very long. It would be, you know, a catastrophic failure without our protection.”
On the United States’ fight against ISIS and our efforts to seek a political accord between President Bashar Assad of Syria and rebel forces:
“Well, I thought the approach of fighting Assad and ISIS simultaneously was madness, and idiocy. They’re fighting each other and yet we’re fighting both of them. You know, we were fighting both of them. You know, we were fighting both of them. I think that our far bigger problem than Assad is ISIS, I’ve always felt that. Assad is, you know I’m not saying Assad is a good man, ’cause he’s not, but our far greater problem is not Assad, it’s ISIS.”
Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articlesh…/51582767.cms…