NEW YORK: Donald Trump on Monday 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 terrorism just as we have defeated every threat we faced at every age," said Trump in Ohio, a battleground state considered essential to winning the US presidential election.
His foreign policy address marked the latest attempt by the Trump campaign to get their maverick candidate back on message as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton surges ahead in the polls.
Watering down his highly contested assertion that Barack Obama and Clinton created the so-called Islamic State extremist group, Trump said IS was "the direct result of policy decisions" made by the president and former secretary of state, referencing chaos in Iraq and Libya.
He claimed the extremist group, which is the target of US-led air strikes and Special Forces operations in Iraq and Syria, was "fully operational" in 18 countries and had "aspiring branches in six more."
Trump vowed to work "very closely" with NATO, sidestepping previous criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after saying that a Trump presidency would not automatically leap to members' defence.
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