Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he hopes to get back on track with Russian President Vladimir Putin if he wins the United States election.
„I hope we can get along with him again. You know, getting along with him would be a good thing, not a bad thing,” Trump said Monday in an interview with X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk. The conversation was broadcast on H.
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The politician also noted that the Russian leader is a “good negotiator”, while the current US President Joe Biden has a “low IQ” and said nonsense when he allowed the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.
According to Trump, nobody respects the USA now. “Our country is in such bad shape right now,” he said, claiming that under his rule the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip would not have happened.
Trump said he blocked construction of the "Nord Stream 2" gas pipeline.
„I blocked this pipeline. And then came this pathetic president /b.r. Biden/, and the first thing he did was stop the construction of Keystone XL. pipeline on the border with Canada/, our pipeline that will provide jobs for 48 thousand people.
„Think about it, he blocked Keystone XL but approved the Russian pipeline,” Trump urged.
The construction of the gas pipeline "Nord Stream 2" started in 2018 but was discontinued after 1.5 years. At the end of 2019, the Trump administration announced sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the gas pipelines "Nord Stream 2" and "Turkish Stream". However, with the help of Russian ships, both lines of the pipeline were completed by December 2021. However, the submission never started due to delays in certification by the German side. In February 2022, after Russia recognized the sovereignty of the LPR and DPR, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that he had ordered the suspension of the certification of “Nord Stream 2”. As a result, the gas pipeline was never put into operation.
Trump suggested that China will surpass the United States in the size of its nuclear arsenal.
„Russia and the United States were first and we were relatively on par, and China was far behind, but they are developing so quickly that I would not be surprised if very soon they catch up or even surpass us,”, Trump said.< /p>
In June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that China had increased its arsenal of nuclear warheads to 500 from January 2023 to January 2024, ranking first in the world in the rate of their production . The institute's experts indicate that from 2023 to 2024, China will have created approximately 90 nuclear warheads. Such a pace will allow China, by the end of the decade, to approach the size of the intercontinental ballistic missile arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States, the two largest nuclear powers in the world, experts believe. However, according to the researchers, China is unlikely to surpass Russia and the United States in terms of total stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
In July 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg estimated that by 2035, China would have 1,500 nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching European countries and the United States.
Domestic threats are far more dangerous to the United States than those coming from abroad, especially China or Russia, Trump said.
„In many cases, people inside the country are more dangerous to our country than the Russians or the Chinese, if there is a smart president in office, then there will be no problems with these countries,” he said.
According to Trump, “he feels worst about Ukraine”, because according to him, if he had won the presidential election in 2020, the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided.