Germany trades barbs with Donald Trump after Angela Merkel meeting
WASHINGTON: Germany and US traded barbs over the weekend about defence spending following an awkward first meeting between President Donald Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rebuffed Trump over her country’s commitment to meeting NATO funding commitments after the US President posted on Twitter Saturday that “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!” “There is no debit account in NATO,” von der Leyen countered in her statement, arguing that the spending goal for NATO members includes other activities beyond the defense alliance. “We all want fair burden-sharing and that requires a modern concept of security.”
The president wrote that he’d had a “GREAT meeting with” Merkel, brushing off what he termed “fake” reports suggesting otherwise. The exchanges come after Merkel, at a joint White House press conference on Friday, appeared to tweak the president about his criticisms of her and others on social media and elsewhere, including an interview in January calling Germany’s open-border refugee policy a “catastrophic mistake”.
“In the period leading up to this visit, I’ve always said it’s much, much better to talk to one another and not about one another, and I think our conversation proved this,” the German leader said through a translator.
Trump on Friday said he had “reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO, as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defence”. He said “many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States”.
Trump isn’t the first US leader to complain that most NATO nations, including Germany, weren’t meeting the alliance’s goal that members spend 2% of their GDP on defence. Germany spends about 1.2% on defence now.
President Barack Obama in 2016 said in an interview with The Atlantic about his foreign policy doctrine that “free riders aggravate me”. Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s foreign minister, said a few weeks ago said that meeting the 2% goal is “unrealistic”, although that’s a much lower percentage than the US spends on defence.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rebuffed Trump over her country’s commitment to meeting NATO funding commitments after the US President posted on Twitter Saturday that “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!” “There is no debit account in NATO,” von der Leyen countered in her statement, arguing that the spending goal for NATO members includes other activities beyond the defense alliance. “We all want fair burden-sharing and that requires a modern concept of security.”
The president wrote that he’d had a “GREAT meeting with” Merkel, brushing off what he termed “fake” reports suggesting otherwise. The exchanges come after Merkel, at a joint White House press conference on Friday, appeared to tweak the president about his criticisms of her and others on social media and elsewhere, including an interview in January calling Germany’s open-border refugee policy a “catastrophic mistake”.
“In the period leading up to this visit, I’ve always said it’s much, much better to talk to one another and not about one another, and I think our conversation proved this,” the German leader said through a translator.
Trump on Friday said he had “reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO, as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defence”. He said “many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States”.
Trump isn’t the first US leader to complain that most NATO nations, including Germany, weren’t meeting the alliance’s goal that members spend 2% of their GDP on defence. Germany spends about 1.2% on defence now.
President Barack Obama in 2016 said in an interview with The Atlantic about his foreign policy doctrine that “free riders aggravate me”. Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s foreign minister, said a few weeks ago said that meeting the 2% goal is “unrealistic”, although that’s a much lower percentage than the US spends on defence.
