Baltics 'scared to death' of Russia, Trump, Biden tells US voters

VILNIUS - United States Vice President Joe Biden said he got the impression during a recent visit to Latvia that the Baltic nations are extremely worried about Russia and the likelihood of Republican Donald Trump getting elected the next US president.

In a speech in the state of Ohio to back Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Biden described hurrying to the Baltics in order to support the countries’ leaders and reassure them that Trump does not represent all of America.

"Donald Trump said he's not sure he'd honour our NATO commitment to protect them if Russia invaded them. They're scared to death with good reason that Russia will cross the border and annex them like they did Crimea," the politician remarked in his outline of the Riga visit.

"They are members of NATO, and Trump said he'd check whether they'd paid all their dues … For the first time he's causing nations to actually wander whether or not we'll keep our word. The idea that I ever thought in my career I'd have to get on plane to make basically an emergency flight to hold the hands of three presidents from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and say .. . he didn't represent Republicans or Democrats in this," said Biden.

During a visit in Riga on Aug. 23, he asserted that the Baltic nations had no reason to doubt US loyalty to NATO, offsetting Trump’s earlier comments. According to Biden, Trump does not know what he's talking about.

Kestutis Girnius, associate professor at the Vilnius University's International Relations and Political Science Institute, remarked that Democrats worked to overstate the situation as an illustration of the riskiness of a Trump presidency due to his unpredictable foreign policy.

"The election campaign is in progress, and it is a conscious attempt of the Democratic Party to show that Trump was illiterate in foreign policy, which would make him dangerous. They're trying to show that even if voters think Trump's domestic policies are better than those of Clinton, they should not vote for him because of his failure to grasp foreign policies," Girnius informed BNS Lithuania on Friday.

Biden's speech is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSDvbiszQ0w. His comments regarding the Baltics begin at minute 31.