GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump would advocate a non-interventionist approach to world affairs that would reject "nation-building" if he wins the White House,
the Washington Post reports.
In an interview with the newspaper's editorial board Monday —
when he first revealed five of his picks for a foreign policy advisory team — Trump said the United States has to look inward.
"I do think it's a different world today, and I don't think we should be nation-building anymore," Trump told the Post.
"I think it's proven not to work, and we have a different country than we did then. We have $19 trillion in debt. We're sitting, probably, on a bubble. And it's a bubble that if it breaks, it's going to be very nasty. I just think we have to rebuild our country."
Trump also cast China as a leading economic and geopolitical rival — and said the United States should toughen its trade pacts, the Post reports.
"China has got unbelievable ambitions," Trump told the Post.
"China feels very invincible. We have rebuilt China. They have drained so much money out of our country that they've rebuilt China. Without us, you wouldn't see the airports and the roadways and the bridges. The George Washington Bridge [in New York], that's like a trinket compared to the bridges that they build in China. We don't build anymore. We had our day."
He also questioned the United States' continued involvement in NATO and its military presence in Asia, the Post reports.
"Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we're doing all of the lifting," Trump said. "They're not doing anything. And I say: 'Why is it that Germany's not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of Ukraine, why aren't they dealing? Why are we always the one that's leading, potentially the third world war with Russia.'"
Trump also blasted the U.S. military investments in Asia.
"South Korea is very rich, great industrial country, and yet we're not reimbursed fairly for what we do," Trump said. "We're constantly sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games — we're reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing."
Asked whether the United States benefits from its involvement in the region, Trump replied, "Personally, I don't think so… I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country, and we are a poor country now. We're a debtor nation."
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