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Secretary Jens Stoltenberg Confronted By Trump On EU Gas Pipeline Agreement With Russia…

posted 7 years ago by Rorikon (18397)
18 replies | jump to latest

Trump Eats NATO for Breakfast

"Stoltenberg: […] I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart."

"Trump: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?"

"Stoltenberg: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that"

"Trump: No, you’re just making Russia richer. You’re not dealing with Russia. You’re making Russia richer."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnjje-Nvjs

[–] Bubbathegut (18253) 7 years ago

NATOEO's, its whats for breakfast.

[–] Rorikon (18397) 7 years ago

MSM is now complaining that this is helping Putin undermine NATO. Billions or so for Russian pipeline and then they still want US protection? Sounds unfair doesn't it? Makes Russia richer.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/12/politics/trump-nato-putin/index.html

To be fair, Donald Trump doesn’t understand how NATO works. It’s a recommended guideline for percentage of GDP a country should spend on defense, not a cumulative military fund. We choose to spend 4% of GDP on defense. In times of peace you spend less.

On March 16, 2017 President Trump submitted his request to Congress for $639 billion in military spending—$54 billion—which represents a 10 percent increase—for FY 2018 as well as $30 billion for FY2017 which ends in September. With a total federal budget of $3.9 trillion for FY2018, the increase in military spending would result in deep cuts to many other federal agencies and domestic programs, as well as the State Department.

In February 2018, the Pentagon requested $686 billion for FY 2019.

Jesus Christ, nearing the 700 billion mark. Talk about a war faring empire in time of peace. I bet you could give everyone in US 1 million and no one would be poor no more.

I just don't fucking get the point of increasing when we're NOT AT WAR. Makes no fucking sense to spend more other than the military industrial complex. Heck I would support Trump whole heartedly if we were at war (besides the never ending war on terror).

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

Yeah it's clearly not a real proposal. Doubling his previous demand for countries to meet 2% to 4% GDP defense spending is something he knows cannot and will not be met by NATO allies. Whereas there may have been an outside shot of meeting 2% GDP in spite only the UK currently meeting that mark, his goal was never really about getting NATO to increase their defense spending. This was all a pretext to justify his coming announcement to scrap NATO altogether to please his Russian handler. Undermining NATO and smashing the alliance into a thousand pieces has been a primary Russian geopolitical aim for decades. Trump is playing the useful idiot for Russian interests in order to fulfill whatever deal he worked out with Putin as he prepares for their private meeting in Helsinki next week.

I'm curious for anyone refusing to believe Trump is actively colluding with Russia, to provide ONE plausible innocent explanation as to why Trump is insisting on a private meeting with Putin without even his closest US aides present.

Putin of course will bring along his own translator and record keeper to take note of what is discussed. This is precarious and frankly quite insane for Trump. That means Putin can come out claiming they agreed on whatever he wants with notes taken by his own note keeper without Trump having an active witness and note taker of his own should they have a point of contention.

Unless this really isn't about any sort of deal making, but is in fact more about one to one face time in their active and ongoing conspiracy to 1) get Russian sanctions lifted 2) meddle in upcoming US elections to ensure Dems don't retake congress and Trump remains free of oversight 3) destroy NATO and 4) Trump wanting to know details of how he gets paid for selling out the US and delivering this gift wrapped bonanza to Russia. From the Steele dossier, Trump was offered 19.5% equity in Rosneft in the summer of 2016 if he could lift sanctions. With Rosneft off the table after being sold to a UAE sovereign fund he'll want to know how he gets paid and how much. It's his greed that drives him.

[–] filmtenk (765) 7 years ago

I don’t know what to make of this. On one hand, it doesn’t seem fair that we (the US) spend $700 billion on NATO and Germany spends around $42 billion.

NATO is a shield from Russian aggression. Russia has proven in recent years that they need to be kept in check based on their annexation of Crimea. Maybe other countries should pay more or we should pay a lot less, but NATO is necessary.

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

Except we don't spend 700 billion on NATO. That figure is the entire US annual defense budget.

First, disregard any of the propaganda Trump has ever uttered about NATO. He doesn't understand how it works. The actual NATO budget is quite small, a $1.4 billion military budget and a $250 million civilian budget. The US pays a relatively modest part of that total, about 22 percent. The percentage is based on a formula which includes the size of each member state’s economy. This mainly goes to pay for the NATO headquarters in Belgium and the quite thin military infrastructure which coordinates and integrates the various member-country militaries which make up the alliance. That’s it. The whole thing is budgeted at less than $2 billion. The percentage the US pays is reasonable relative to the size of our economy.

The vastly greater amount is the military budgets of all the member countries combined, which was $921 billion in 2017. The great majority of that is made up of the US military budget. In 2017 the US military budget was $610 billion. The coming fiscal year puts it at $700 billion that Trump chose to increase 10% during peacetime! Some of that difference is driven by the fact that the US economy is far larger than any individual NATO member state. But the US also spends much more on a per-capita basis. Staying with the 2017 numbers, the US spends 3.61 percent of GDP on defense. The next major NATO member is the UK at 2.36 percent while most other major NATO powers are significantly under 2 percent. (France, 1.79 percent; Germany, 1.2 percent; Canada, 1.02 percent.)

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Rorikon (18397) 7 years ago

3.57% of US GDP on NATO is about $685,957,000 so it may get confusing since our military budget is nearing $700 billion if requests go through and our NATO spending is nearing $700 million also. :p

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/07/10/defense-expenditure-of-nato-members-visualized-infographic/#3a4abeaa14cf

Helps to do a tiny bit of research yourself if you're confused.

Thing is, US doesn't WANT to pay less. They seem to want to pay more as Trump is driving up the military budget and then demands other countries not even make the 2% minimum but a 4% now which is even crazier.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1017290478839050240

And finally:
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/07/trump-still-distorting-nato-spending/

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

He said 700 billion, not 700 million.

[–] Rorikon (18397) 7 years ago

Yes, which is what I was correcting him on... I see that you already mentioned it somewhat which is very similar to the factcheck.org article.

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

Ah. I see. I thought that was addressed to me.

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

Oh, and so to answer your question. There is a legitimate question on national policy whether the US should still be paying for a military which acts as the ultimate guarantor of security in Europe and East Asia, and in some ways, all over the world. Of course we are not just defending these countries out of altruism. In addition to various benefits we gain by being the world’s preeminent military and economic power, there’s a more concrete one. US deployments in Europe mean that our military frontier is not on the east coast of the US but somewhere in Eastern Europe. A parallel logic applies in East Asia.

There are a number of reasons the US would want NATO members to increase spending. One is to make it possible over time for the US to reduce its own spending. The other more immediate issue is that for an allied military to be useful has to have a certain level of readiness. It’s not just a matter of spending X dollars on your military. A member state has to meet a threshold of being a modern military force for it to be useful for our military to work with at all. These are the reasons the US has wanted NATO partners to up their spending. Trump is not the first US President to push for this as Bush and Obama did too. In 2014, at our urging, NATO set a target that member states should get to a minimum of 2 percent by 2024. Almost all of them have increased spending in GDP terms. But few are at 2 percent yet and it’s an open question how many will get there by 2024.

But I think we can set aside these questions as being relevant because Trump clearly isn't proposing any reductions to US defense spending to compensate. Instead, he frequently brags about his dramatic increase in US military spending.

But to demand 4% now is entirely unreasonable and clearly designed to provoke and provide him an excuse to dissolve the alliance.

[–] Rorikon (18397) 7 years ago

Thing is I don't believe US wants to reduce it's own spending, well, not under the republican party anyway. I know Obama cut military spending during his term in office. The reason imo is to keep Russia/China and other communist countries in check so we pay more to build bases in other countries for ease of access and shipping/movements of our forces. We have over 800+ military bases around the world after WW2.

Also, if you look at it from a global standpoint, US is like the heart and the other allies are sorta like the appendages. What better way to protect yourself by having allies surrounding you as a shield buffer using your US made equipment (some of them anyway). The only real threat is on the west coast where Russia and US are neck and neck pretty much in the Alaskan region.

Again, I would agree with you they should up their spending if during wartime but there really isn't any war with the other nations (except terror and Muslims). US has been the only one doing the warring of their own and dragging the coalition along with it.

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

But this is the real conundrum here. Like you note, the Republican party has NEVER been about reducing military spending because of the emphasis of keeping adversarial countries in check by maintaining our bases around the world.

But a key part of being able to maintain those bases is our NATO alliances. Like I noted in my last post, it allows us to keep our Eastern front on the borders of Eastern Europe instead of the East Coast.

But based on all of Trump's rhetoric so far, he's setting things up to withdraw from NATO and hence weaken our national security. The amazing thing to me is how the Republican party stands by idly knowing NATO has been a central plank of our security platform for the last 70 years. They know better than anyone how essential it is to maintaining our national security and global military presence. It's like they're absolutely paralyzed because they can't even really absorb this is really happening, that Trump is actively destroying a key national security plank our country has depended upon since WW2, the strength of our transatlantic alliance.

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

To further address your point, since NATO allies HAVE been upping their spending since 2014, he should be OK with reducing US military spending to compensate.

Instead he's increasing peacetime military spending by 10% while throttling the debt with his reckless tax cuts. It makes absolutely no fiscal sense.

[–] Gd5150 (11972) 7 years ago

Reckless tax cuts that are responsible for 4% economic growth, record stock market, and record unemployment. More people working means more paying taxes and more tax revenue.

The benefits of a booming economy and keeping tax rates lower.

#TiredOfTrumpWinning

[–] eYeDEF (5050) 7 years ago

Adding a trillion dollars of additional debt. Are you fucking kidding me?

The time for tax cuts and for increases in government spending are when the economy is in a slump in order to pull the economy out of the gutter. When the economy is already on an upward trajectory and riding high is NOT the time to be cutting taxes and increasing spending if you actually care about responsible government.

If you want to know what happens when government throws fiscal responsibility to the wind and continue to spend and cut taxes in the midst of a boom, look no further than Venezuela. There are costs and consequences for such recklessness. This is not rocket science. It's basic macroeconomics.

[–] Bubbathegut (18253) 7 years ago

To be fair, nobody knows how NATO works. That goes for the UN too. Whats the point of these organizations if mass murder and tyranny are still allowed? Russia invaded Crimea, where was NATO?

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

"Trump Eats NATO for Breakfast"

Was it cheese and pastries? If so, John Kelly is going to be pissed once again! He just may pack up his suitcase and fly home if he can't get a decent breakfast.