US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, reacting to attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station on Tuesday, said the United States and Western countries should toughen up in their fight against religious militants.
“I would close up our borders,” Trump told Fox News in an interview.
“We are lax and we are foolish,” said Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination in the November election.
Earlier on Monday, Trump said he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there.
Israel regards the divided city as its capital but many countries, including its ally the United States, have resisted moving their missions there while its status and borders are still a matter of dispute.
Palestinians also see the city — which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims — as their future capital, and any final peace deal between the peoples would have to include an agreement on sovereignty.
Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican US presidential nomination, despite previously risking the wrath of conservative foreign policy voters by suggesting he would be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
But on Monday, shortly before addressing the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby in Washington, he told CNN: “There’s nobody more pro-Israel than I am. We have to protect Israel. Israel is so important to us.”
And, asked whether he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Washington. Trump replied: “Yes, I would.”
“The fact is I would like to see it moved, I would like to see it in Jerusalem,” he said.
