Actions speak louder than words. Right now, President Trump is being attacked by the media again, this time for his soft words toward President Putin at the recent summit in Helsinki. In his actions, though, President Trump has been tough on Russia and Vladimir Putin, sanctioning Russian oligarchs who make their millions by ripping off the Russian people and arming Ukranian rebels who guard against Russian invasion. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our NATO allies.
After Germany announced plans to go ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline – a pipeline that will make Germany and other European countries almost entirely dependent on imported Russian gas – President Trump blasted the decision at the NATO summit, saying, “…it is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes and pays out billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. We’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries.”
Trump continued by saying, “The former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas… Germany is totally controlled by Russia — they will be getting 60-70 percent of their energy and a new pipeline… I think it’s not [appropriate] and it’s a very bad thing for NATO…. I think we have to talk to Germany about that.”
The issue of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is double-edged. For one, it bolsters the Russian economy at a time when the US is trying to levy sanctions against them. More importantly, though, the pipeline will make Germany almost completely dependent on Russia for their energy needs. In the words of Trump, this makes Germany “captive to Russia”. Should relations between NATO and Russia ever take a serious turn for the worse, all Russia would have to do to completely neutralize one of the most powerful NATO countries is flip a switch.
It wasn’t just the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Trump took issue with at the NATO summit, though. It was long expected that Trump would use the summit to call out NATO member countries that were not meeting their pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. It’s a pledge that most NATO members, including Germany, fail to meet, leaving the US (who spends 4.2%) to foot the bill for their defense.
“We’re paying a lot of money to protect, this has been going on for decades… it’s very unfair to our country, it’s very unfair to our taxpayers…” Trump said at the summit, “these countries need to step it up, not over a ten year period, but immediately.”
Currently, just five of the twenty-nine NATO countries, including the US, are meeting the minimum pledge to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. Those that do not meet the minimum threshold largely rely on the strength of the United States military to ensure their security, therefore relying on the wallets of US taxpayers to pay for that security.
When you consider the fact that we are paying an enormous amount of money to keep these European countries safe from all threats – the most serious one being Russia – it becomes all the more sickening that Germany would make themselves captive to Russia simply to bring in more money.
Nevertheless, it is Trump’s words rather than NATO’s actions that is the current topic of interest for the media in the US and the world at large. Trump chose to use the summit with Putin as a chance to improve our relationship with Russia and foster peace rather than attack him. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, Trump’s strategy towards Russia and Putin has been to “talk softly and carry a big stick”.
The strategy of other NATO countries, meanwhile, has been the exact opposite. They’ve talked harshly toward Russia and Putin while at the same time making themselves captive to Russia and refusing to commit to building a defensive counterbalance against them. To hear the mainstream media tell the story, it is Trump who is enabling Putin rather than NATO. When you look at the facts, however, it becomes clear that this is not the case.
~ American Liberty Report
