WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called again for
tougher U.S. border security following Tuesday's deadly attacks on the Brussels
airport, saying "we have to be very vigilant and careful about who we
allow into our country."
Trump's
comments, in an interview on NBC's "Today" program, came a day after
he expressed skepticism about the U.S. role in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and said the United States should significantly cut spending on
the defense alliance."As president ... I would be very, very tough on the borders, and I would be not allowing certain people to come into this country without absolute perfect documentation," he told NBC.
Republican
rival John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, struck a different tone, pledging to
"redouble our efforts with our allies" and saying the United States
"must strengthen our alliances" in the face of acts of terror.
U.S. Senator
Ted Cruz, who is running second to Trump in the Republican delegate count,
called the blasts in Belgium "the latest in a string of coordinated
attacks by radical Islamic terrorists."
"Radical
Islam is at war with us," he said in a statement posted online.
Adam Schiff,
the top Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, said the Brussels
attacks that killed at least 26 people at the airport and a rush-hour metro
train, "bear all the hallmarks of an ISIS-inspired, or ISIS-coordinated
attack," using an acronym for Islamic State.
The attacks
will likely revive national security as a key issue in the 2016 race for the
White House, at least for now.
Trump looks
to take another step toward winning the Republican presidential nomination in
contests in Arizona and Utah on Tuesday, aiming to deal another setback to the
party establishment's flagging stop-Trump movement.
The
billionaire businessman has rolled up a big lead in convention delegates who
will pick the Republican nominee, defying weeks of attacks from members of the
party establishment worried he will lead the Republicans to defeat in the Nov.
8 presidential election.
In Arizona,
one of the U.S. states that borders Mexico, Trump's hardline immigration
message is popular and he leads in polls, while in Utah Trump lags in polls
behind Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas.