‘Nasty’ Infighting Rages as NATO Meets for Summit
LONDON (Reuters) -- U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at European allies before a NATO anniversary summit in London on Tuesday, singling out France’s Emmanuel Macron for "very nasty” comments on the alliance and Germany for spending too little on defense.
Underlining the breadth of strife in a transatlantic bloc hailed by its backers as the most successful military alliance in history, Trump demanded that Europe pay more for defense and also make concessions to U.S. interests on trade.
The attack echoed a similar tirade by Trump ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s last summit in July 2018.
It will add to the growing doubts over the future of the 29-member alliance, described last month by Macron as "brain dead” in the run-up to a London meeting intended to be a 70th anniversary celebration.
"It’s a tough statement, though, when you make a statement like that, that is a very, very nasty statement to essentially 28, including them, 28 countries,” Trump told reporters as he met the head of NATO in London.
"Nobody needs NATO more than France,” he said, adding that France, where Macron is seeking to push through delicate reforms of a large state sector, was "not doing well economically”.
In an interview with the Economist last month, Macron made headlines by faulting NATO for failing to update its strategy to respond to newer threats.
The prime ministers of Canada and the Netherlands added their support to a Franco-German proposal to reform NATO.
"I don’t think you survive 70 years as an alliance without regularly
reflecting,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a forum before the NATO summit, sitting alongside his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte.
Rutte said it made sense to set up a proposed "wise persons” group of experts to consider how to reform NATO politically after splits between Turkey, France and the United States have emerged, and he called for a "fundamental rethink”.
Trump explicitly linked his complaint that Europe does not pay enough for NATO’s security missions to his staunch "America First” defense of U.S. commercial interests, saying it was time for Europe to "shape up” on both fronts.
"It’s not right to be taken advantage of on NATO and also then to be taken advantage of on trade, and that’s what happens. We can’t let that happen,” he said of transatlantic disputes over everything from the aerospace sector to a European "digital tax” on U.S. technology giants.
Dismissing recent signals from Germany that it was ready to do more to match a NATO target of spending two percent of national output on defense, Trump accused it and other nations which spend less than that of being "delinquent”.
The U.S. leader’s broadside came only hours after splits opened up elsewhere in the alliance, with Turkey threatening to block a plan to defend Baltic states and Poland against Russian attacks unless the alliance backs Ankara in recognizing the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group.
"If our friends at NATO do not recognize as terrorist organizations those we consider terrorist organizations... we will stand against any step that will be taken there,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said before traveling to London.
Erdogan, who has already strained alliance ties with a move to buy Russian air defense systems, said he would meet Polish President Andrzej Duda and leaders of Baltic countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday branded NATO’s continued expansion as pointless because the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had removed the threat, and told a meeting of military leaders in Sochi that it was a danger for Russia.
While Trump hailed Turkey as a good NATO ally, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier warned Ankara in a Reuters interview that "not everybody sees the threats that they see” and urged it to stop blocking the Baltics plan.
In a bid to placate Trump, Europe, Turkey and Canada will pledge $400 billion in defense spending by 2024, and also agree to reduce the U.S. contribution to fund the alliance itself.
The allies will approve a new strategy to monitor China’s growing military activity, and name space as a domain of warfare, alongside air, land, sea and computer networks.
Underlining the breadth of strife in a transatlantic bloc hailed by its backers as the most successful military alliance in history, Trump demanded that Europe pay more for defense and also make concessions to U.S. interests on trade.
The attack echoed a similar tirade by Trump ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s last summit in July 2018.
It will add to the growing doubts over the future of the 29-member alliance, described last month by Macron as "brain dead” in the run-up to a London meeting intended to be a 70th anniversary celebration.
"It’s a tough statement, though, when you make a statement like that, that is a very, very nasty statement to essentially 28, including them, 28 countries,” Trump told reporters as he met the head of NATO in London.
"Nobody needs NATO more than France,” he said, adding that France, where Macron is seeking to push through delicate reforms of a large state sector, was "not doing well economically”.
In an interview with the Economist last month, Macron made headlines by faulting NATO for failing to update its strategy to respond to newer threats.
The prime ministers of Canada and the Netherlands added their support to a Franco-German proposal to reform NATO.
"I don’t think you survive 70 years as an alliance without regularly
reflecting,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a forum before the NATO summit, sitting alongside his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte.
Rutte said it made sense to set up a proposed "wise persons” group of experts to consider how to reform NATO politically after splits between Turkey, France and the United States have emerged, and he called for a "fundamental rethink”.
Trump explicitly linked his complaint that Europe does not pay enough for NATO’s security missions to his staunch "America First” defense of U.S. commercial interests, saying it was time for Europe to "shape up” on both fronts.
"It’s not right to be taken advantage of on NATO and also then to be taken advantage of on trade, and that’s what happens. We can’t let that happen,” he said of transatlantic disputes over everything from the aerospace sector to a European "digital tax” on U.S. technology giants.
Dismissing recent signals from Germany that it was ready to do more to match a NATO target of spending two percent of national output on defense, Trump accused it and other nations which spend less than that of being "delinquent”.
The U.S. leader’s broadside came only hours after splits opened up elsewhere in the alliance, with Turkey threatening to block a plan to defend Baltic states and Poland against Russian attacks unless the alliance backs Ankara in recognizing the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group.
"If our friends at NATO do not recognize as terrorist organizations those we consider terrorist organizations... we will stand against any step that will be taken there,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said before traveling to London.
Erdogan, who has already strained alliance ties with a move to buy Russian air defense systems, said he would meet Polish President Andrzej Duda and leaders of Baltic countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday branded NATO’s continued expansion as pointless because the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had removed the threat, and told a meeting of military leaders in Sochi that it was a danger for Russia.
While Trump hailed Turkey as a good NATO ally, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier warned Ankara in a Reuters interview that "not everybody sees the threats that they see” and urged it to stop blocking the Baltics plan.
In a bid to placate Trump, Europe, Turkey and Canada will pledge $400 billion in defense spending by 2024, and also agree to reduce the U.S. contribution to fund the alliance itself.
The allies will approve a new strategy to monitor China’s growing military activity, and name space as a domain of warfare, alongside air, land, sea and computer networks.