The headline is INCREDIBLY misleading, undiplomatic in the extreme —probably deliberately.
“LETTING”...?
He said nothing of the sort. The word is designed to make it look like the US orders other countries around.
He was conceding that in the end they’ll have to go their own way.
Good catch. The press is always distorting what he says. He said he thinks they will eventually want nuclear weapons. That’s certainly different from what the headline claims. The craziest thing is that some of the commenters on the article at The Hill are even claiming that this article shows that Trump wants to give our nuclear weapons technology to Japan and South Korea! So many arguments against Trump from all sides are based on pure straw men arguments. He’d probably be 10-20% higher in the polls, if there weren’t so many lies spread about him and his positions.