Of course they'll have to take a step back. Germany is forever scarred by their experiment with Nazism and the centrist and lefty Germans feel very uncomfortable outside European multilateral structures. My bet is, they'll up their military spending to full 2% and negotiate slowly with Trump on the trade issues.
Merkel: "Germany can no longer rely on America"
- Thread starter danmand
- Start date
Wasn't Tyler Durden the imaginary violence-loving alter ego of Ed Norton's delusional character in Fight Club? Isn't that a clue as to how to read his pieces?
Durden got Merkel's words right (albeit selectively). However, AFP interpreted them in a particular light to fit a particular narrative, but you have to read carefully to catch it. Why even include the AFP take unless it is also the author's intended takeaway?
What Merkel was really saying (and it comes out well in the translation of Merkel's own remarks) is that Europe can no longer depend on the US to carry Europe's weight for it in NATO, and that Europe's position on climate change initiatives will no longer be agreed to by the US based solely on the basis of "consensus". She's right about both, and right to tell Germans and the Europeans about it.
However, this acknowledgement of a different political climate falls well short of her forewarning that disaster will ensue. She doesn't say the US position is wrong. Europe taking more responsibility for NATO may well be a good thing, as may be a more serious discussion about how US interests differ from European interests vis a vis the Paris agreement.
As for Trump's comments about cars, everyone who is even minimally trying not to misinterpret him knows he's talking about the 65 billion dollar trade deficit the US has with Germany (about the same size as the deficit with Mexico). Obviously, he is referencing some trade barriers which he believes account for a significant part of that deficit.
Who is this Durden anyway? Just some blogger?
The US is not carrying any weight for Europe in Nato.
As for cars, do you really believe that it is trade barriers that keeps American cars out of Europe?
All sources, even CNN, acknowledge that few European countries are contributing the 2% required: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-trump/
The deficit is not confined to cars. What Trump was saying is that the American market is largely open to German exporters, to the benefit of German manufacturers and to the detriment of American competitors. He mentioned cars, because that is a particularly successful German export. Germany is the #1 car exporter in the world (about 21% of total world car exports - and I'm not sure whether this even includes German cars being manufactured and exported from Mexico).
A good summary of import barriers on goods coming into Germany from the US can be found here: http://2016.export.gov/germany/Mark...TradeRegulationsandStandards/eg_de_034964.asp
If she looses in the upcoming election it will have been because of her crazy open door immigration policy.
About the time universal peace breaks out.
The way you attempt to avoid things going nuclear is two fold, having a conventional military strong enough that when attacked nuclear is not your only option, and having a nuclear force sufficient to make anyone think twice before going that route themselves.
That's a stupid argument. If you follow that like of thinking why not spent 99.999% of you budget on the military?
Clearly you will agree there is a limit to the value of military spending.
There's nothing the US military does that contributes to global security that couldn't still be done with a third of the military budget.
Overspending on the military is a drag on the US economy and therefore a large risk to the global economy.
Sure she will. Merkel's electoral strength is based on domestic policy. She cannot risk trade war with America and she's the very definition of pragmatism.
Lord! So a Navy of 60 ships is the same as a Navy of 500 deployable ships, an Army of 90,000 is the same as an Army of 810,000
Wow all those members of military staffs, and civilian annalists if only Barack Obama had known that all of them could have been replaced by Fuji!
It can very well be argued that the large US military is responsible for reduced security. Americans are unable to see any connection between their military killing people in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq and the blowback terrorist attacks.
The perennial dilemma is that while you need an overpowering conventional arsenal to deter aggressors around the globe (nukes don't deter rogue states, because no one believes the US will drop a nuke as a first strike, and nukes are of no use at all against terrorist forces), how do you deter politicians from using that conventional arsenal, just because it's sitting there doing nothing, to pursue less noble objectives? I'm not convinced that the solution is to degrade your conventional forces. Politicians with ill intent will use whatever forces are available to pursue whatever is within their grasp. If US forces are degraded, they'll just pick softer targets. Meanwhile, there would be more rogue actions, border skirmishes, and minor invasions without the knowledge that US forces could push all of these back easily (if it wished to).
WASHINGTON**— President Trump received a largely cordial welcome on the first overseas trip of his presidency. But now that he's returned to Washington, the foreign leaders he met with are increasingly blunt in their reviews of the American president.
In separate remarks intended mostly for domestic consumption, leaders of Germany, France and Israel all sought to distance themselves from Trump, just days after meeting with the president during his nine-day foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Vatican City, Brussels and Italy.**
Among the sources of friction: Trump's reluctance to unreservedly commit to the North Atlantic alliance, his skepticism of a climate change accord signed on to by his predecessor, President Obama, and outreach to Palestinians in pursuit of a Middle East peace agreement.**
"It’s clear**that in Europe at least, that anti-Trump position plays well domestically," said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration. "But the larger issue is that the trip didn’t go well in Europe."
The dynamic is partly one of Trump's brash style. "I think what grates on European leaders**is the sense that he does not treat them as equals, let alone as allies," Daalder said. "He approaches them in this confrontational way, in an attempt to constantly get a better deal out of them."
Trump hasn't spoken about the trip publicly, avoiding press conferences for the entire journey. But on Twitter, he pronounced the mission a**triumph.**"Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!" Trump tweeted on Sunday.**
The reaction abroad was more cautious:
France: New French President Emmanuel Macron said his now-famous white-knuckled handshake with Trump was a deliberate attempt to demonstrate that he wouldn't be bullied by the American president.**“One must show that you won’t make small concessions, even symbolic ones, but also not over-publicize things, either,” he told the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche.**“My handshake with him — it wasn’t innocent.”**
Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday at a Bavarian beer hall that Europe can no longer "fully rely" on its overseas allies. On climate issues, she said, the Group of Seven meeting was "seven against one"**— counting the European Union as part of the seven (and the United States as the one). Her chief political rival**took umbrage at the way Trump sought to "humiliate" Merkel in Brussels.**"I reject with outrage the way this man takes it upon himself to treat the head of our country's government," said Martin Schulz, who is challenging Merkel for the chancellorship as an "anti-Trump" candidate. He said Trump was**"acting like an autocratic leader."
United Kingdom: British Prime Minister Theresa May is upset that American intelligence officials leaked information about the Manchester concert bombing to the media. Trump acknowledged that he got an earful from May, tweeting Sunday that she was "very angry" about the leaks. "Gave me full details!"
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said Israel has "no better friend"**than Trump,**appeared to hold the president at arm's length on**Monday. Speaking to**members of his conservative Likud party, Netanyahu warned that a Trump-brokered peace negotiation with the Palestinians "comes at a price." And while he welcomed U.S. support for Israel, he emphasized that**"there is no such thing as innocent gifts."
Palestinian Authority: An Israeli television station reported that Trump shouted at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, during their meeting in Bethlehem last week yelling, "You tricked me!" and accusing the Palestinian Authority of inciting violence in the West Bank. (The Palestinians denied the report.)
Trump's trip began in Saudi Arabia with a summit of Muslim Arab leaders**— and they're perhaps the least likely to grumble. After feeling neglected by Obama, the Saudis welcomed a $110 billion arms package and Trump's more bellicose rhetoric toward mutual enemies like Iran and the Islamic State.
But in Europe, Trump's "America First" foreign policy appeared to alienate other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 68-year-old alliance intended to contain Russia — the**country at the center of a growing controversy over ties to Trump aides.**
At a ceremony meant to solemnize the collective defense provision of the NATO charter in Brussels, Trump failed to explicitly reassure European allies that the U.S. would come to their aid in the event of an attack. Instead, he renewed his complaints that they were not paying their fair share. (In doing so, he misrepresented the commitment by NATO allies to spend at least 2% of their economies on defense.)
And in Sicily, where leaders of the G-7**economic powers gathered, Trump continued his hard-line stance on climate and trade issues. He reportedly told Merkel that Germany was "bad" or "evil"**(depending on the translation) because of its trade imbalance with the United States.
But among Trump supporters, his tough talk to foreign leaders drew raves. Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he "could not be more pleased" with Trump's international travels.
"The trip was executed to near perfection and it appears the president has made great progress on the broad range of objectives," he said after speaking with Trump on Sunday.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...gn-trip/ar-BBBE10C?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
In separate remarks intended mostly for domestic consumption, leaders of Germany, France and Israel all sought to distance themselves from Trump, just days after meeting with the president during his nine-day foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Vatican City, Brussels and Italy.**
Among the sources of friction: Trump's reluctance to unreservedly commit to the North Atlantic alliance, his skepticism of a climate change accord signed on to by his predecessor, President Obama, and outreach to Palestinians in pursuit of a Middle East peace agreement.**
"It’s clear**that in Europe at least, that anti-Trump position plays well domestically," said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration. "But the larger issue is that the trip didn’t go well in Europe."
The dynamic is partly one of Trump's brash style. "I think what grates on European leaders**is the sense that he does not treat them as equals, let alone as allies," Daalder said. "He approaches them in this confrontational way, in an attempt to constantly get a better deal out of them."
Trump hasn't spoken about the trip publicly, avoiding press conferences for the entire journey. But on Twitter, he pronounced the mission a**triumph.**"Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!" Trump tweeted on Sunday.**
The reaction abroad was more cautious:
France: New French President Emmanuel Macron said his now-famous white-knuckled handshake with Trump was a deliberate attempt to demonstrate that he wouldn't be bullied by the American president.**“One must show that you won’t make small concessions, even symbolic ones, but also not over-publicize things, either,” he told the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche.**“My handshake with him — it wasn’t innocent.”**
Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday at a Bavarian beer hall that Europe can no longer "fully rely" on its overseas allies. On climate issues, she said, the Group of Seven meeting was "seven against one"**— counting the European Union as part of the seven (and the United States as the one). Her chief political rival**took umbrage at the way Trump sought to "humiliate" Merkel in Brussels.**"I reject with outrage the way this man takes it upon himself to treat the head of our country's government," said Martin Schulz, who is challenging Merkel for the chancellorship as an "anti-Trump" candidate. He said Trump was**"acting like an autocratic leader."
United Kingdom: British Prime Minister Theresa May is upset that American intelligence officials leaked information about the Manchester concert bombing to the media. Trump acknowledged that he got an earful from May, tweeting Sunday that she was "very angry" about the leaks. "Gave me full details!"
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said Israel has "no better friend"**than Trump,**appeared to hold the president at arm's length on**Monday. Speaking to**members of his conservative Likud party, Netanyahu warned that a Trump-brokered peace negotiation with the Palestinians "comes at a price." And while he welcomed U.S. support for Israel, he emphasized that**"there is no such thing as innocent gifts."
Palestinian Authority: An Israeli television station reported that Trump shouted at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, during their meeting in Bethlehem last week yelling, "You tricked me!" and accusing the Palestinian Authority of inciting violence in the West Bank. (The Palestinians denied the report.)
Trump's trip began in Saudi Arabia with a summit of Muslim Arab leaders**— and they're perhaps the least likely to grumble. After feeling neglected by Obama, the Saudis welcomed a $110 billion arms package and Trump's more bellicose rhetoric toward mutual enemies like Iran and the Islamic State.
But in Europe, Trump's "America First" foreign policy appeared to alienate other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 68-year-old alliance intended to contain Russia — the**country at the center of a growing controversy over ties to Trump aides.**
At a ceremony meant to solemnize the collective defense provision of the NATO charter in Brussels, Trump failed to explicitly reassure European allies that the U.S. would come to their aid in the event of an attack. Instead, he renewed his complaints that they were not paying their fair share. (In doing so, he misrepresented the commitment by NATO allies to spend at least 2% of their economies on defense.)
And in Sicily, where leaders of the G-7**economic powers gathered, Trump continued his hard-line stance on climate and trade issues. He reportedly told Merkel that Germany was "bad" or "evil"**(depending on the translation) because of its trade imbalance with the United States.
But among Trump supporters, his tough talk to foreign leaders drew raves. Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he "could not be more pleased" with Trump's international travels.
"The trip was executed to near perfection and it appears the president has made great progress on the broad range of objectives," he said after speaking with Trump on Sunday.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...gn-trip/ar-BBBE10C?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
A third of the current US military is still overwhelming compared to any other state, not just rogue states.
This is particularly true if the US cooperates with other nations like NATO instead of bitching at them because they don't over spend the way the US does.
What's new? First there was Brother Jonathan, then when U.S. Presidents began to travel overseas while in office, Woodrow Wilson was pretty much hated by Lloyd George and Clemenceau. Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill and W. L. Mackenzie King got along with FDR and then Harry Truman because they had too, but there wasn't a great deal of love lost between them. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher got along, but his relations with Continental leaders to put it mildly weren't stress free.
