Trump’s trade war turning into a crisis for Nato
For British Prime Minister Theresa May, the most worrying part of US President Donald Trump’s talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong- un came two days before the two men met. Mr Trump had arrived in Singapore early after escaping the G7 summit in Canada, still sore at being upbraided by his European and Canadian counterparts about tariffs. With time on his hands, he took to Twitter to hit back by switching the conversation to defence and one of his favourite bugbears: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
“Germany pays 1 per cent ( slowly) of GDP towards Nato, while we pay 4 per cent of a MUCH larger GDP,” he announced. “The US pays close to the entire cost of Nato- protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade”. This situation, he said, would soon end. “Change is coming!”
This was, for once, an understatement. The future of the Nato looks shakier now than perhaps at any time since its inception in 1949. Six of the G7 are in Nato, and the US spends more on defence than its 28 other members together. But the alliance only works when its members can present a united front: hard to do when the Mr Trump routinely describes Nato as a scam and openly muses about leaving its members to fend for themselves. Without faith in Nato, there is no Nato.
This is precisely why there is such concern in London. Before the G7 summit, Ms May briefed her ministerial colleagues about the seriousness of the situation — and how the row over tariffs might turn into a full- blown security crisis. Before Mr Trump was elected he had described Nato as “obsolete”, but Ms May told her ministers he only backtracked on this because of pressure from the British government during their meeting in Washington in January last year. The big concern now is the Nato summit in Brussels next month, and that what began with Mr Trump slapping tariffs on European and Canadian steel could turn into a trade war, which the President might then escalate by threatening to walk away from his allies. For Mr Trump, defence and trade are very much linked.
A former US ambassador to Nato Ivo Daalder has been frank about what Mr Trump’s conflation of trade and defence means for Nato. “The lifeblood of the alliance is trust,” he said recently. “So a trade dispute based on national security — that’s what hurts.”
But it also hurts because there is so much truth in Mr Trump’s criticism. Each of the 29 Nato members agrees to spend two per cent of its economic output on defence, but only four do: Greece, Estonia, the UK and the US.
It’s not just Mr Trump who objects to this. Successive American presidents have been losing patience. Take Germany, the target of so much of Mr Trump’s recent ire. While defence is a low priority among a largely pacifist German public, mindful of their country’s history, a report for the German Parliament earlier this year revealed the extent of the decay of its Army, Navy and Air Force. At the end of last year, the Bundeswehr had 128 Eurofighters, of which 39 could fly. It had six submarines, none of which were working when the report was compiled. Of its 13 ageing frigates, only five could sail. Of its 93 Tornado jets, 26 were ready for action. German Air Force trainees struggled to qualify because so few aircraft were ready for use.
Its staffing is also in crisis. Hans- Peter Bartels, armed forces commissioner to the German Parliament, reported recently that 21,000 officer posts are vacant. “We spent 25 years cutting the defence budget,” he said. “We thought everything could be solved through negotiations, agreements,
Six of the G7 are in Nato, and the US spends more on defence than its 28 other members together. But the alliance only works when its members can present a united front: hard to do when the Mr Trump describes Nato as a scam...
co– operation and partnerships.”
Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German envoy to Washington, said it was “undignified” that the most that Germany could contribute to the US- led fight against Islamic State was reconnaissance flights.
Mr Trump’s language about Nato may be vulgar and intemperate, but US officials have been running out of ways to express their frustration. Mr Robert Gates, appointed defence secretary by George W. Bush, warned that Nato would be consigned to “military irrelevance” unless European member states stumped up. Mr Obama seethed about “free riders”. When Mr James Mattis was appointed as Mr Trump’s defence secretary, he lost no time in warning European leaders that “Americans cannot care more for your children’s security than you do.”
So Mr Trump’s tweets are just more succinct expressions of a message that America has been trying to send to Nato for years: patience in Washington has worn thin and it’s time to pay up. If you don’t, then you’ll end up fending off Russians with your broomsticks, pretend bombs and broken helicopters.
America’s focus was already shifting away from Europe and towards China. Mr Trump tends to see foreign affairs mainly in terms with his relationship with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, and he is quite open about the low value he places on the alliances he inherited. “I believe in relationships,” he said a few months after taking office. “And I believe in partnerships. But alliances have not always worked out very well for us.”
His theatrical style of leadership, on full display in Singapore, is anathema to Europeans — it also underlines the essential difference in worldviews now driving Nato apart. His decision to pull out of the Iran deal was made in defiance of the pleas and protests of his allies, including the UK. Mr Trump believes in nation states, strong leaders and chemistry between leaders. He loathes the idea of committees and consensus. Especially when, as he believes, it leads to America being stiffed.
Officially, Britain says it isn’t worried about Nato — given America’s longstanding commitment. Privately, ministers are in a panic and running out of options. The new defence secretary Gavin Williamson has warned ministers that Mr Trump’s annoyance with Germany may soon spread to other countries and that Britain might not be exempt from the President’s ire. As The Spectator revealed last month, Ms May is planning a massive cash boost for the NHS to mark its 70th birthday next month. That implies less money for defence and a military kept on the bare minimum, with declining capabilities, when threats are increasing both on land and in cyberspace. Mr Williamson was frank with Ms May: if she wants to protect the special relationship, extra defence spending is the only language that Mr Trump understands.
Chancellor Philip Hammond dislikes expensive solutions to any problems and is proposing that Britain instead applies pressure on Germany. His latest idea is for Britain to suggest that Germany assuages Mr Trump on the trade front: by making more BMWs in South Carolina.
Mr Trump, he believes, needs to be offered an industry- related “deal” in return for at least pretending to believe in the G7, Nato, and the other institutions through which Britain and Europe try to wield power and influence.
But after Singapore, the President will be harder than ever to bring to heel. Whether the summit with Mr Kim will be remembered as a breakthrough or a stunt, he believes that his style of diplomacy has been vindicated and that it’s time to see what else he can do. If he wants to scare European nations into spending more on defence by threatening to leave them to Vladimir Putin’s mercy, then he’ll probably try that too — to see how they respond.
When Mr Trump last visited the Nato headquarters in Brussels, to unveil a monument to the 9/ 11 victims, he took the opportunity to tear into countries who don’t “meet their financial obligation” to Nato in a way that is “not fair to the people or taxpayers of the United States”. His speech did not include an explicit endorsement of Article 5 of the Nato treaty, a declaration that at attack on one member state is an attack on them all. This was supposed to have been the point of his speech. The White House said afterwards that it should go without saying, but diplomats were left with the impression that the omission was deliberate.
The threat is not that America will choose isolation, as it did in the 1930s, or that Russia will send tanks into Europe. But the risk is that Nato will lose its remaining capacity to deter as a united group, making lower- level Russian adventurism more likely. When Mr Putin spots weakness and division, he likes to prod, test and watch the reaction — as Ukraine has found out.
Europe has for years bet that this is a risk that America would not run: that it might complain about Nato, but would not do anything to undermine it.
But Mr Trump’s election has changed a great many things. And now, the unmovable force of Europe’s refusal to invest properly in defence is meeting the unstoppable force of Mr Trump on a mission. The next few months will show us whether Nato survives the collision.