Special relationship ‘very different under Sanders’
The Democrat candidate and rival to Clinton says he would cut spending on the defence of US allies
THE defence relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom will “absolutely” change if Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders is elected president, his campaign has said.
Tad Devine, chief strategist for the Sanders campaign, said Britain should be prepared to re-evaluate that relationship if the Vermont senator’s surging campaign ends in a general election victory, as Mr Sanders believes it is time the US stops “spending so much of its resources defending the rest of the world”.
“Bernie has been very outspoken about his priorities in terms of the collective defence of the United States and our allies,” Mr Devine told The Daily
Telegraph, noting that it will be “very different than the current military industrial policy of the United States”.
The comments came after an acrimonious debate between Democrat candidates Mr Sanders and Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire that laid bare the rifts that have grown between them. The aura of inevitability around the former secretary of state has begun to dissipate after a “virtual tie” in the Iowa caucuses (Mrs Clinton won by four-tenths of 1 per cent).
In New Hampshire, it is Mr Sanders who holds the advantage. A poll released hours before the debate showed him with a two-to-one advantage in the state. Even more worryingly for the former secretary of state, a poll conducted after Iowa showed the race tightening dramatically nationwide, with Mrs Clinton on 44 per cent and Mr Sanders on 42 per cent.
The same polling organisation, Quinnipiac, had Mrs Clinton leading 61-30 in December.
The poll also found Mr Sanders faring much better in hypothetical matchups against Republican candidates. It had Mrs Clinton losing by seven percentage points if the Republican candidate was Marco Rubio, while Mr Sanders is tied with the Florida senator.
Much of Thursday’s debate was centred on labels. Mr Sanders said Mrs Clinton was a member of the “establishment” and not a true “progressive”. Mrs Clinton scoffed at the idea that Mr Sanders was the “gatekeeper of progressivism”, and said his insinuations about her ties to Wall St were part of an “artful smear”.
Their differences on foreign policy were less cosmetic, with Mrs Clinton promoting a robust American presence abroad.
‘He believes it is time the US stopped spending so much money defending the rest of the world’