Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization pose for the Family Photo | July 11, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
At The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan applauds President Trump for finally saying what needed to be said to Europe about the unfair NATO alliance, and the continent’s free riding. American taxpayers have supported Europe long enough, and Pat says “America’s situation is unsustainable economically and politically.” He writes (abridged):
Of President Donald Trump’s explosion at Angela Merkel’s Germany during the NATO summit, it needs to be said: It is long past time we raised our voices.
America pays more for NATO, an alliance created 69 years ago to defend Europe, than do the Europeans. And as Europe free-rides off our defense effort, the EU runs trade surpluses at our expense that exceed $100 billion a year.
To Trump, and not only to him, we are being used, gouged, by rich nations we defend, while they skimp on their own defense.
At Brussels, Trump had a new beef with the Germans, though similar problems date back to the Reagan era. Now we see the Germans, Trump raged, whom we are protecting from Russia, collaborating with Russia and deepening their dependence on Russian natural gas by jointly building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
When completed, this pipeline will leave Germany and Europe even more deeply reliant on Russia for their energy needs.
To Trump, this makes no sense. While we pay the lion’s share of the cost of Germany’s defense, Germany, he said in Brussels, is becoming “a captive of Russia.”
We are giving the world a lesson in how great powers decline.
America’s situation is unsustainable economically and politically.
A frustrated Trump has already hinted he may accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea. And he appears earnest about reducing our massive trade deficits in goods that have been bleeding jobs, plants, equipment, capital and technology abroad.
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