By Jack Parkos | United States
Trump recently had a meeting with countries in NAT. He was very upset with NATO because many members of NATO had not been paying their fair share, forcing the US to increase spending. When Trump is upset he likes to tweet about it, and boy did he tweet up a storm. Here are some things he tweeted about in the past couple of days:
NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS. Very Unfair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2018
Presidents have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get Germany and other rich NATO Nations to pay more toward their protection from Russia. They pay only a fraction of their cost. The U.S. pays tens of Billions of Dollars too much to subsidize Europe, and loses Big on Trade!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2018
….On top of it all, Germany just started paying Russia, the country they want protection from, Billions of Dollars for their Energy needs coming out of a new pipeline from Russia. Not acceptable! All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2018
What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? Why are there only 5 out of 29 countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade. Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 11 юли 2018 г.
Trump isn’t wrong on some of this. NATO was founded almost 70 years ago as a strategic alliance against the Soviet Union, with the idea that all countries would work together. But what good is NATO if the United States is one of the only countries paying? Why must we pay the defense of other countries? We basically are defending Europe and getting nothing for it. This is extremely unfair to the taxpayers, as our debt continues to spiral and their money goes across the ocean.
Before, NATO was anti-USSR. Now it is anti-Russia. We are supposed to protect Germany from getting invaded by Russia, but Germany trades with Russia. If Russia is such a threat to Germany, why would Germany trade with them? Why would you want to help the economy of a country of that is supposedly going to attack you? Essentially, we are sending billions of dollars protecting a country from an invasion that likely won’t happen. Modern Russia isn’t the USSR, there are no signs they want to take over Europe. Why are we protecting Europe? What is the threat?
There may some debate as to whether we should continue to support NATO, but we can all agree that while we are in disagreement we shouldn’t be spending this much on it. We are getting screwed over by other countries.
Trump has bombarded leaders at the meetings. He came out saying a lot has been accomplished and that other countries will pay there fair share and ties to NATO are strong. However, we don’t have many specifics on what went in the meeting. We can only hope for the best.
To support 71 Republic, please donate to our Patreon, which you can find here.
