Donald Trump’s recent statement that Japan and South Korea should be allowed to manufacture their own nuclear bombs shows that he “doesn’t know much about foreign policy,” President Barack Obama said Friday.
Obama was speaking to the media at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit when he was asked about Trump saying that he wouldn’t take anything off the table, including using nuclear weapons in Europe and allowing Japan and South Korea to have such weapons to deter North Korea.
“They tell us the person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula or the world generally,” Obama said, adding that Trump’s comments came up “on the sidelines” of the summit.
“I’ve said before that, you know, people pay attention to American elections. What we do is really important to the rest of the world,” Obama said.
Obama called the alliance with Japan and South Korea “one of the cornerstones of our presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”
“It has been an enormous boon to American commerce and American influence. And it has prevented the possibilities of a nuclear escalation and conflict between countries that in the past and throughout history have been engaged in hugely destructive conflicts and controversies. So you don’t mess with that,” Obama said. “We don’t want somebody in the Oval Office who doesn’t recognize how important that is.”
