I've pasted part of the transcript below, and two things strike me which are worth bringing up the next time I teach Intro to Int'l Relations, and also for research on the politics of peace. First, Trump fails to realize that maintaining alliances and troops abroad are in our own interest, not just that of allies. Even if allies aren't paying their full share in dollar terms, by hosting U.S. troops, they are contributing to the liberal international order advanced by all previous U.S. administrations since WWII. It's the free-rider problem that Trump is concerned with, but even then, we permit a degree of free-riding b/c to not supply military power in certain parts of the world would in the long-run hurt our interests.
Second, his comments on Korea evokes arguments raised by the political left: reunification may have happened without U.S. presence. He also questions notions of peace. For instance, we claim that U.S. presence brought about peace, yet we see a hostile, nuclear North. Maybe Trump is right. But this is all counterfactual thinking, and we could equally plausibly argue that the absence of U.S. forces may have resulted in a second Korean War (started by either the North or South), or have led to greater provocations from North Korea.
Here's a portion of the transcript with relevant parts highlights.
SANGER: So what we want to do is pick up where we left off in March
. We were listening to Speaker Ryan last night, and he presented a much more traditional Republican, engaged internationalist view of the world. One in which he said that the United States would never lead from behind. In our conversation a few months ago, you were discussing pulling back from commitments we can no longer afford unless others pay for them. You were discussing a set of alliances that you were happy to participate in.
TRUMP:
And I think, by the way, David, I think they will be able to afford them.
SANGER:
They may be.
TRUMP:
We can't.
SANGER: But I guess the question is, If we can't, do you think that your presidency, let's assume for a moment that they contribute what they are contributing today, or what they have contributed historically, your presidency would be one of pulling back and saying, "You know, we're not going to invest in these alliances with NATO
, we are not going to invest as much as we have in Asia since the end of the Korean War because we can't afford it and it's really not in our interest to do so."
TRUMP:
If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I'm talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, "Oh, Trump doesn't want to protect you." I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth - you have the tape going on?
SANGER:
We do.
HABERMAN:
We both do.
TRUMP:
With massive wealth. Massive wealth. We're talking about countries that are doing very well. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, "Congratulations, you will be defending yourself."
SANGER:
That suggests that our forward deployments around the world are based on their interests - they're not really based on our interests. And yet I think many in your party would say that the reason that we have troops in Europe, the reason that we keep 60,000 troops in Asia, is that it's in our interest to keep open trading lines, it's in our interest to keep the North Koreans in check, you do that much better out away from the United States.
TRUMP:
I think it's a mutual interest, but we're being reimbursed like it's only in our interest. I think it's a mutual interest. ...
SANGER:
We were talking about alliances, and the fundamental problem that you hear many Republicans, traditional Republicans, have with the statement that you've made is that it would seem to them that you would believe that the interests of the United States being out with both our troops and our diplomacy abroad is less than our economic interests in having somebody else support that. In other words, even if they didn't pay a cent toward it, many have believed that the way we've kept our postwar leadership since World War II has been our ability to project power around the world. That's why we got this many diplomats --
TRUMP:
How is it helping us? How has it helped us? We have massive trade deficits. I could see that, if instead of having a trade deficit worldwide of $800 billion, we had a trade positive of $100 billion, $200 billion, $800 billion. So how has it helped us?
SANGER:
Well, keeping the peace. We didn't have a presence in places like Korea in 1950, or not as great a presence, and you saw what happened.
TRUMP:
There's no guarantee that we'll have peace in Korea.
SANGER:
Even with our troops, no, there's no guarantee.
TRUMP:
No, there's no guarantee. We have 28,000 soldiers on the line.
SANGER:
But we've had them there since 1953 and --
TRUMP:
Sure, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be something going on right now. Maybe you would have had a unified Korea. Who knows what would have happened? In the meantime, what have we done? So we've kept peace, but in the meantime we've let North Korea get stronger and stronger and more nuclear and more nuclear, and you are really saying, "Well, how is that a good thing?" You understand? North Korea now is almost like a boiler. You say we've had peace, but that part of Korea, North Korea, is getting more and more crazy. And more and more nuclear. And they are testing missiles all the time.
SANGER:
They are.
TRUMP:
And we've got our soldiers sitting there watching missiles go up. And you say to yourself, "Oh, that's interesting." Now we're protecting Japan because Japan is a natural location for North Korea. So we are protecting them, and you say to yourself, "Well, what are we getting out of this?"
SANGER:
Well, we keep our missile defenses out there. And those missile defenses help prevent the day when North Korea can reach the United States with one of its missiles. It's a lot easier to shoot down from there --
TRUMP:
We've had them there for a long time, and now they're practically obsolete, in all fairness.
SANGER:
Relatively new missile defenses would allow us --
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