Trump swaggers on, leaving his Nato allies dazed and confused
Trump refers to partners like Canada, France and Germany as ‘so-called allies’ and believes such relationships restrict the US. Decades-old alliances are bad deals where America pays out too much and gets too little in return
HE CAME, he saw, he sowed chaos. Thus could most of US President Donald Trump’s overseas trips be summarised. After the G7 meeting last month ended positively following a number of stormy sessions, Trump tweeted angrily from Air Force One, apparently repudiating summit conclusions he had endorsed.
This week’s Nato summit followed a by now familiar pattern of bombastic rants and obtuse statements other leaders scurry to decipher before a volley of tweets appears to turn everything upside down again.
Trump has long been known as a Nato sceptic. During his presidential campaign, he declared “obsolete” the alliance Washington has regarded as a key pillar of its military strategy for 69 years.
After Trump took office, he became more conciliatory and aides sought to present his views of Nato as constructive criticism. But arriving in Brussels for this week’s summit, he tweeted “What good is Nato” if Germany is becoming more dependent on energy from Russia, adding “the US is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on trade” – another salvo his tariff wars.
He followed up in a similar vein during a filmed breakfast meeting with Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg before the summit began, accusing Berlin of being “totally controlled” by Moscow because of the controversial Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
But it was on Thursday after he arrived late at the North Atlantic Council, Nato’s main decisionmaking body, that Trump caused the most consternation.
Jettisoning a meeting already in progress with the presidents of Ukraine and Georgia, Trump took the floor to warn of “grave consequences” if allies did not swiftly boost their military spending and threatened the US “could go our own way” if these demands were not met.
Amid the scrambling to parse what exactly Trump meant, French President Emmanuel Macron was among those who insisted it was not an overt threat to quit Nato, but others interpreted it as exactly that. At a press conference later, Trump did not expand on his apparent threat to abandon the alliance but claimed he had secured pledges for significantly greater spending commitments from other member states, though Macron and others denied this.
The vexed question of contributions – known as “burden sharing” in Nato-speak – has dogged the alliance for years. Four years ago, Nato members agreed to work towards each ally spending at least 2pc of their GDP by 2024. Trump’s apparent ultimatum at this week’s summit demanded this be met by January, an impossible ask.
After sowing so much confusion, Trump’s last press conference before he departed Brussels was surreal: he lauded the summit as a success, praised Nato and talked up his relationship with its leaders.
He later tweeted a similarly disconnected-from-reality video about how the two-day meeting unfolded accompanied by the words “Thank you @Nato2018”.
All this reminds us of yet again is Trump’s unconventional and unpredictable approach to Washington’s long-standing allies and some of the cornerstones of the post-World War II global architecture.
He reportedly refers to partners like Canada, France and Germany as “so-called allies” and believes such relationships restrict the US and ultimately undermine or even harm its interests.
“We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” a senior administration official told ‘The Atlantic’ magazine.
IN TRUMP’S world view, the decades-old alliances are too often bad deals where the US pays out too much and gets too little in return.
In recent weeks, Trump has lambasted US allies as being “worse” than its foes by “robbing” the American “piggy bank” and repeatedly griped Washington disproportionately supports Nato even though it “helps [Europeans] a lot more than it helps us”.
This week, Trump departed a baffled Brussels and travelled on to Helsinki for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he continues to lavish with soft words. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Trump leaves the US’s traditional allies confused and disoriented in his wake.