Trump Calls NATO Alliance ‘Delinquent’ on Military Spending

President Donald Trump kicked off his NATO summit meetings on a contentious note, calling allies “delinquent” for failing to spend enough on their own defense and attacking Germany as a “captive” of Russia because of its energy dealings.

Trump is in Brussels for the start of a seven-day, three-nation European trip that highlights the ways he has utterly transformed U.S. foreign policy. After the NATO summit, he travels to Britain and then to Finland to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

“Many countries are not paying what they should, and, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back,” Trump said at a breakfast with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Belgium. “They’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them.”

He singled out Germany for particularly sharp criticism, saying the country was “totally controlled by Russia” because of its dependence on Russian natural gas. The United States spends heavily to defend Germany from Russia, he said, and “Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.”

In March, Germany gave approval for Gazprom, the Russian energy titan, to construct the Nord Stream 2 pipeline through its waters, a $10 billion project.

“Germany is a captive of Russia” because of the oil and gas issue, Trump said. “I think it’s something that NATO has to look at.”

Stoltenberg countered that “despite differences,” NATO was about uniting “to protect and defend each other.”

But Trump shrugged off the collective defense principle, saying, “How can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the country you want protection against?”

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany offered a reminder that she learned firsthand, growing up in the former East Germany, what it means to be a “captive” nation. Modern Germany, she said, is not one.

“I have experienced myself how a part of Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union,” she told reporters who asked about Trump’s comments as she entered the NATO leaders’ meeting. Now “united in freedom,” she said, Germany “can make our own policies and make our own decisions.”

In her typical polite-but-firm fashion, Merkel showed no sign of irritation at Trump’s remarks and did not say directly that he was wrong, but she made her position clear.

She noted that Germany was the second-largest provider of NATO troops, after the United States, and had thousands of troops supporting the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan.

“Germany does a lot for NATO,” she said, adding that, in the process, Germans “defend the interests of the United States.”