Nato members don’t appear to care about Trump arrest, Blinken says

US Secretary of State says members are ‘focused on what we’re actual doing’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said representatives from fellow Nato member nations didn’t show any interest in the unprecedented criminal case which New York City prosecutors unveiled against former president Donald Trump one day before.

Mr Blinken was asked to describe Nato members’ reactions to Mr Trump’s arrest and arraignment in a Manhattan courtroom during a press conference in Brussels, where he’d travelled to attend a ceremony marking Finland’s addition to the 31-nation defensive alliance.

After reminding reporters that he does not “do politics,” the top US diplomat said the “proceedings in New York actually did not come up” in his discussions with representatives of other Nato nations during his visit to Nato headquarters.

“Nor did I get questions about the durability of our approach,” he said. “I think people are very focused on what we’re actually doing”.

Mr Trump, who according to his former national security adviser John Bolton, has plans to withdraw the US from Nato if he wins a second term, is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his former home state.

The charges stem from a hush money scheme carried out during his first presidential campaign to keep women with whom he’d had extramarital affairs from talking to the press before voters went to the polls in November 2016.

The ex-president pleaded not guilty to all the charges during an appearance in the Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.