Trump once again criticized NATO and other military alliances in which he said the U.S. bears too much of the financial burden. | AP Photo Trump rips Clinton's 'dumb talk' about U.S. allies

When it comes to America’s military allies, Donald Trump told rally attendees on Friday, “You always have to be prepared to walk.”

Likening military negotiations to his history of business deals, the Republican presidential nominee once again criticized NATO and other military alliances in which he said the U.S. bears too much of the financial burden. In an interview last month with The New York Times, Trump said the U.S. should not come to the defense of its NATO allies if those nations are not meeting their financial contributions to the treaty organization.


At a rally Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump once again said the U.S. should rethink how its military interacts with international partners.

“You always have to be prepared to walk,” Trump said. “You know, Hillary Clinton came out and said, ‘That’s terrible. He’s not going to stick with our allies.’ We’re going to stick, but once the ally hears her dumb talk, because it’s dumb, why would they ever pay?”

“Let’s say somebody like Hillary Clinton makes this statement, ‘We will never abandon our allies.’ I think those statements are beautiful. I think they’re great,” Trump said. “One problem: When you go in and say, ‘We will never ever abandon you, but you have to pay us more money,’ they’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to pay you more money if you’re not going to abandon us.’ You always have to be prepared to walk. I don’t think we’d walk. I don’t think it’s going to be necessary. It could be, though.”

Trump’s earlier statements about NATO came amid the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and were nearly unanimously condemned even by members of his own party. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a military veteran who has since said he will not vote for Trump, called the Manhattan billionaire’s foreign policy proposals “narcissistic” and “utterly disastrous.” Kinzinger took particular offense to Trump’s suggestion that American soldiers are "some kind of a protection racket that has to be paid to protect our allies, or I’m some kind of a mercenary force.”

At Friday’s rally, Trump highlighted America’s military alliance with Japan as an agreement particularly worthy of ridicule. He said that Japan, a key U.S. ally in the Pacific, should be forced to pay 100 percent of America’s military costs for protecting the island nation, not the roughly 50 percent it pays now.

“You know, we have a treaty with Japan where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States,” Trump said. “If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television. No. What kind of deals are these? Folks, I’m being serious: What kind of deals are these?”