Donald Trump pledges ‘Cold War’

Donald Trump on Tuesday laid out a US blueprint for defeating global terrorism in partnership with Nato and Middle East allies, demanding extreme restrictions on immigration and likening the fight to the Cold War.

The Republican nominee, who is tanking in the polls following weeks of self-inflicted disasters, made his pitch to be a security strongman as the Democratic vice-president accused him of imperiling the lives of Americans.

“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism just as we have defeated every threat we faced at every age,” Mr Trump said in Ohio, a battleground state which is considered essential to winning the US presidential election.

Mr Trump claimed the extremist group, the target of US-led airstrikes and special forces operations in Iraq and Syria, was “fully operational” in 18 countries and had been “aspiring branches in six more.”

The former reality TV star vowed to work “very closely” with Nato, sidestepping previous criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation after saying that Trump presidency would not automatically leap to members’ defence.

“I have previously said Nato was obsolete because it failed to deal adequately with terrorism. Since my comments, they have changed their policy and now have a new division focussed on terror threats, very good,” he said.

He added that his administration would “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”, and be a “friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East”.

At home he demanded new immigration screening, saying that the perpetrators of a series of attacks in the United States involved “immigrants or the children of immigrants”.

“We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people,” he ventured.

“In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today. I call it extreme vetting.”

The Clinton campaign responded by stating that any policy submitting immigrants to ideological tests was a “ploy”.

“How can Mr Trump put this forward with a straight face when he opposes marriage equality and selected as his running mate the man who signed an anti-LGBT law in Indiana It’s a cynical ploy to escape scrutiny of his outrageous proposal to ban an entire religion from our country and no one should fall for it,” Ms Clinton’s senior