Donald Trump wants to work with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on reducing nuclear weapons. | AP Photo Trump eager to work with Putin

President-elect Donald Trump signaled an openness to working with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a nuclear reduction deal to ease American sanctions.

Trump's interview with the Times of London, published Sunday afternoon, comes amid ongoing questions in the U.S. in the days before his inauguration this Friday about Putin's election-related cyberattacks last year on Trump's behalf and the possibility that the president-elect's campaign was in contact with Russian intermediaries.


Although Trump's team Sunday denied a separate Times of London report that his first foreign visit was to be a summit with Putin in Reykjavik, Trump himself revealed an openness to easing sanctions on Russia that the U.S. and NATO allies have imposed in response to Russia's annexation of territory in Ukraine and Crimea.

“They have sanctions on Russia — let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia," Trump told the Times. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it. But Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.”

Trump, who has been consistently and surprisingly complimentary of Putin and critical of the Obama administration's policy toward Russia, did criticize Putin's intervention in Syria, calling it "a very bad thing" that led to a "terrible humanitarian situation."

Trump also pledged to work with Britain and other European countries on new bilateral trade deals as he predicted the further disintegration of the European Union and criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for immigration policies that he blames for the backlash against pan-Europeanism.

Trump's emerging foreign policy — both his eagerness for rapprochement with Putin and his support for Brexit and the wave of new nationalist uprisings across Europe and the West — offers America's allies and adversaries a new, transactional approach to the world and seemingly heralds the end of the post-Cold War Western order built on decades of strong trans-Atlantic alliances, free trade and shared values.

“I think it’s very tough,” Trump, whose "America First" mantra helped to propel him to the presidency, told the Times. “People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity.”

Trump, who predicted more countries would follow Britain's lead and leave the European Union, said he planned to invite British Prime Minister Theresa May to visit the White House "right after" his inauguration and that he wants a trade agreement between the two countries secured "very quickly."

He also criticized Merkel over her country's immigration policy, calling her decision to allow in a million migrants "a catastrophic mistake." Trump, whose hard-line stance on illegal immigration and call for a massive border wall helped ignite his campaign in 2015, blamed rampant immigration across Europe for the nationalist backlash to pan-Europeanism that precipitated Brexit.

“I do believe this, if they [EU countries] hadn’t been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the ­problems that it ... entails, I think that you wouldn’t have a Brexit," Trump said. "It probably could have worked out but this was the final straw, this was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I think people want ... their own identity, so if you ask me ... I believe others will leave.”

Trump also emphasized that he is committed to the defense of Europe and the West and to NATO, even as he reiterated his numerous critiques of NATO itself, which was formed in 1949 to allow Western nations to stand against the Soviet Union.

"I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," Trump said. "Number two the countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to pay. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right.

“And the other thing is the countries aren’t paying their fair share so we’re supposed to protect countries," he continued. "But a lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much.”

