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White House Official To NATO: ‘If You Want To Maintain Relevancy’ Join US War On Jihad [VIDEO]

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Saagar Enjeti White House Correspondent
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NATO alliance countries should increase their commitment to the fight against radical islamic terrorism to maintain relevancy, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, Sebastian Gorka, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

NATO committed a small contingent of forces to train Iraqi Security Forces in the fight against ISIS on Feb. 6, after prodding from the Trump administration.

“This is a start, and then we will assess, work with allies and look at what more we can do,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Wall Street Journal of the alliance’s decision to train Iraqi soldiers. Stoltenberg’s comments come after repeated skepticism from NATO generals in late January that the alliance should be involved in counter-terrorism in the first place.

“If [NATO wants to] maintain your relevancy…understand we have a mutual threat again,” Gorka declared to NATO allies. He continued that the mutual threat facing NATO is “not the red bear and the Warsaw pact its…global islamsim or the global jihadi threat.”

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Gorka’s comments followed Trump’s speech before the Conservative Political Action Committee Friday saying, “I have also directed the defense community to develop a plan to totally obliterate ISIS.” Trump continued, “working with our allies, we will eradicate this evil from the face of the Earth.”

Trump’s speech echoes his comments to the Washington Post in March 2016, saying, “I think the distribution of costs has to be changed. I think NATO as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved.”

Trump doubled down in a CNN interview the same day, saying, “frankly they have to put up more money. They’re going to have to put some up also. We’re paying disproportionately. It’s too much. And frankly it’s a different world than it was when we originally conceived of the idea.”

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