Trump rattles NATO, knocking its value, assailing Germany

BRUSSELS  — Under fire for his warm embrace of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump jolted the NATO summit Wednesday by turning a spotlight on Germany’s ties to Russia and openly questioning the value of the military alliance that has defined American foreign policy for decades.

Trump declared that a joint natural gas pipeline venture with Moscow has left Angela Merkel’s government “totally controlled” and “captive to Russia.” So, in a stroke, he shifted attention away from his own ties to the Kremlin just days before he meets one-on-one with Putin.

With scorching language, the president questioned the necessity of the alliance that formed a bulwark against Soviet aggression, tweeting after a day of contentious meetings: “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy?”


German Chancellor Merkel hit back immediately, not only denying Trump’s contention but suggesting that his comfortable upbringing in the U.S. gave him no standing to spout off on the world stage about Germany.

Drawing on her own background growing up in communist East Germany behind the Iron Curtain, she said:

“I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union, and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions and that’s very good.”

Trump demanded by public tweet that members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025” for their military efforts. He then rattled U.S. allies further by privately suggesting member nations should spend 4 percent of their gross domestic product on the military — more than even the United States currently pays, according to NATO statistics.

It was just the latest in Trump’s demands and insults that critics fear will undermine a decades-old alliance launched to counter-balance Soviet aggression after World War II. And it came just days before Trump planned to sit down with Putin in Finland at the conclusion of what has become a contentious European trip.

Trump has spent weeks berating members of the alliance for failing to increase military spending, accusing Europe of freeloading off the U.S. and even raising doubts about whether he would come to members’ defense as required if they were ever attacked.

Trump’s tongue-lashing accelerated during a pre-summit breakfast, when he traded his usual long-distance Twitter attacks for a face-to-face confrontation with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“We’re supposed to protect you against Russia but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate,” Trump said, repeatedly describing Germany as “captive to Russia” because of the energy deal. He urged NATO to look into the issue.


Trump’s harsh words for Merkel, whose country has hosted tens of thousands of U.S. troops that have been key to post-WWII stability in Europe for seven decades, struck at the core of the alliance. West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a critical factor in the alliance’s success in facing down the Soviet Union until its collapse. Reunified with the East, Germany became the largest European economy in NATO in 1990.

The president’s beef was with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas from Russia to Germany’s northeastern Baltic coast, bypassing Eastern European nations like Poland and Ukraine and doubling the amount of gas Russia can send directly to Germany. The vast undersea pipeline is opposed by the U.S. and some other EU members, who warn it could give Moscow greater leverage over Western Europe. It’s expected to be online at the end of 2019.

Environmental-conscious Germany is trying to reduce its reliance on coal and is phasing out nuclear power by 2022, so it hopes to use natural gas to partially fill the gap until the country’s electricity grid can cope with fluctuating levels provided by renewable energy.

Hours after the breakfast, Merkel and Trump appeared to play nice as they met along the summit’s sidelines. Trump told reporters the two had a “very, very good relationship” and congratulated Merkel on her “tremendous success.”



While Trump went after Germany for its ties to Russia, he himself has been accused by critics of being too eager to improve relations with Moscow. He’s also dismissed the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia tried to undermine Western democracy by meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help him win.

Trump also lobbed fresh complaints about allies’ “delinquent” defense spending and suggested at one point that NATO allies commit to spending 4 percent of their GDP on defense — twice the goal they’ve set for 2024.

“I have great confidence they’ll be spending more,” he said.

However, a formal summit declaration issued by the NATO leaders Wednesday reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to the 2 percent pledge set in 2014 and made no reference to any effort to go higher.

Trump has repeatedly mischaracterized the spending target, wrongly describing it as a fee that countries pay to NATO or the U.S. rather than their own military. NATO estimates that 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.

Back in the U.S., Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement describing Trump’s “brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies, Germany,” as “an embarrassment.”

“His behavior this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the president is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies,” they wrote.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, also criticized Trump’s rhetoric.

“I do believe everybody should get to 2 percent quickly, but the NATO alliance is something that’s very important to the United States and our citizenry, and things that are said to try and create instability, all that it does is strengthen Putin,” Corker said, describing concerns “about conciliatory things that could occur in Helsinki” when Trump sits down with the Russian president.

But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, a strong supporter of the president, said the pipeline issue strikes at the “heart of NATO unity.”

“The pipeline gets cheap Russian gas to Germany while bypassing smaller Eastern European nations, allowing Russia to pressure them while Germany is held harmless,” he tweeted, adding: “No amount of preening in Berlin will cover this nakedly selfish policy.”  /muf

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Merkel wins fourth term as far-right enters German parliament

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives beat their rivals on Sunday to win her a fourth term in an election that will also bring a far-right party into Germany's parliament for the first time in more than half a century, exit polls showed.

After shock election results last year, from Britain's vote to leave the European Union to the election of US President Donald Trump, many look to Merkel to rally a bruised liberal Western order, tasking her with leading a post-Brexit Europe.

She must now form a coalition government - an arduous process that could take months as all potential partners are unsure whether they really want to share power with her.

Merkel's conservative bloc won 32.5 percent of the vote, making them the largest parliamentary group, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD indicated. However, that was down from 41.5 percent in the last election, in 2013.

Support for their closest rivals, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) which are currently junior partners in a so-called "grand coalition" with Merkel, slumped to 20.0 percent - a new post-war low. The SPD ruled out a re-run of that tie-up.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stunned the establishment by finishing third and entering parliament for the first time with 13.5 percent of the vote.

Merkel, Europe's longest serving leader, joins the late Helmut Kohl, her mentor who reunified Germany, and Konrad Adenauer, who led Germany's rebirth after World War Two, as the only post-war chancellors to win four national elections.

SPD deputy leader Manuela Schwesig said her party would now go into opposition. That would rule out a re-run of Merkel's existing alliance with the SPD.

An alternative coalition for Merkel would be a three-way tie-up with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the ecologist Greens. That is a combination as yet untested at national level and known as the "Jamaica" option because the three parties' colors are those of the black-gold-green Jamaica national flag.

Both the FDP and the environmentalist Greens have played down the prospect of a Jamaica coalition, but as they have been out of government for four and 12 years respectively, they may be lured into an alliance by the prospect of power.

New era

Whatever the make-up of her coalition, Merkel, 63, faces four years of government in a fragmented parliament after the return of the FDP - unrepresented at national level for the last four years - and the arrival of the AfD.

Founded in 2013 by an anti-euro group of academics, the AfD has morphed into an anti-immigration party that has profited from Merkel's 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over 1 million migrants, most of them fleeing war in the Middle East.

The party's entry into the national parliament heralds the beginning of a new era in German politics that will see more robust debate and a departure from the steady, consensus-based approach that has marked the post-war period.

The other parties elected to the Bundestag all refuse to work with the AfD, which says it will press for Merkel to be "severely punished" for opening the door to refugees and migrants.

After the AfD hurt her conservatives in regional elections last year, Merkel, a pastor's daughter who grew up in Communist East Germany, wondered if she should run for re-election.

But with the migrant issue under control this year, she threw herself into a punishing campaign schedule, presenting herself as an anchor of stability in an uncertain world. — Reuters

EU leaders say Trump worries them as rhetoric becomes policy

VALLETTA, Malta — European Union leaders on Friday vowed to remain united and defiant in the face of an onslaught of criticism from the new American president that has started to undermine the once-unshakeable trans-Atlantic relationship.

And they hit back in an increasingly grating battle of words, underscoring how they fear that Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric will be turned into policy and further tear apart their troubled bloc.

This week EU chief Donald Tusk moved the US into a “threat” category for the EU, following several negative comments about the 28-nation bloc.

“Maybe the best evidence that we are together in this context was the fact that some of my colleagues have used a new nickname for me, spontaneously, which is ‘our Donald’,” Tusk said Friday at an EU summit in Malta, highlighting the new divisions in the century-old alliance with the US.

French President Francois Hollande said it was unacceptable that Trump could put pressure on the EU through his declarations. And Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite pointed out that it was almost impossible to build a bridge with Trump because “today we’re communicating with the United States mainly on Twitter.”

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said that “Trump must be judged by his actions and not by his rhetoric and his election campaign. But now he has delivered enough actions that are worrying.”

“What has happened in the last few days are really not the values I’m fighting for,” Kern’s Luxembourg counterpart, Xavier Bettel, said.

Trump has questioned the NATO alliance linking North America and Europe, calling it “obsolete,” and hopes for a major EU-US trade deal have already taken a deep dive amid worries of new US protectionism under the Trump slogan “America first.”

Adding insult to injury, Trump called the British decision to leave the EU – the most cathartic event in the bloc’s 60-year history – “a tremendous asset and not a tremendous liability.”

For France and Germany, there is only one solution to facing an unpredictable partner.

“Many countries have to realize that their future is first in the European Union, rather than who knows what bilateral relation with the United States,” said Hollande.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “the more strongly we are clear about how we define our role in the world, the better we can tend our trans-Atlantic relations.”

Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni saw a “great opportunity” for the EU if the Trump administration turns out to be largely domestic-focused, leaving the way open for Europe to be what he called the “No. 1 trade superpower in the world.”

“The question the EU must pose itself is – can it play a more relevant role than what it’s has played up till now internationally?” Gentiloni said, adding that included being more engaged in defense.

He said an EU summit in Rome next month could be the occasion to rise to the challenge.

And even if Gentiloni said trans-Atlantic relations would survive, it didn’t take away the worries that have been increasing by the day since Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Even though Trump has spoken on the phone with Merkel, Hollande, Tusk and hosted British Prime Minister Theresa May in Washington, Europe keeps searching for how to understand the new American leader.

“Who knows what the president of the United States really wants (on NATO)?” Hollande said of the military alliance uniting most EU member nations with the United States.

As much as some leaders and diplomats are saying that the cornerstones of the EU-US relationship remain intact, the bad vibes are seeping through the ranks of the EU’s member states.

On Friday, the Portuguese parliament voted to condemn Trump’s US travel ban on Muslims and highlighted the United States’ important role in promoting tolerance and human rights.

In Sweden, Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lovin posted on Facebook a photo of her signing the country’s new climate law while surrounded by seven female staff members. Swedish media noted it resembled photos of Trump in the Oval Office surrounded by only male advisers. –Raf Casert and Frances D’Emilio

* * *

Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Behind the scenes, Greece and creditors push for breakthrough

ATHENS/BRUSSELS - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke to the leaders of Germany, France and the European Commission by phone on Sunday in an attempt to break the deadlock over a cash-for-reforms deal as time runs out to save Greece from bankruptcy.

After months of wrangling and with anxious depositors pulling billions of euros out of Greek banks, Tsipras's leftist government has signaled a willingness to make concessions in order to unlock 7.2 billion euros in bailout money.

But a day before an emergency summit in Brussels, it is still unclear how far Tsipras, elected in January on a pledge to lift his people out of years of austerity, will yield.

His Syriza party plans a rally in Athens to send "a loud message of resistance" against demands for more cuts and tax hikes in a country battered by years of recession.

But the mood has also hardened in Germany, which has contributed more money than any other country to bailing out Greece. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from within her ranks not to give in to Greek demands, even if that means contemplating Greece leaving the euro zone.

Athens urgently needs access to funds to avoid defaulting on a 1.6 billion euro IMF loan that falls due at the end of the month. But as the crisis gets pushed from one meeting to the next, each side has put the responsibility on the other's shoulder for finding a deal.

Money has drained out of Greek banks after a breakdown in talks last weekend, and Greece might have to impose capital controls within days if there is no breakthrough.

Tsipras called Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Juncker with the latest Greek offer over the weekend.

"The prime minister presented the three leaders Greece's proposal for a mutually beneficial agreement that will give a definitive solution and not a postponement of addressing the problem," a statement from Tsipras's office said.

His government was holed up in an hours-long cabinet meeting on Sunday. Over the weekend, senior European officials have remained in close contact ahead of a meeting of finance ministers and euro zone leaders on Monday.

"Everyone's talking to everyone," an EU official said. "We're continuing to work informally on a solution."

No to blackmail

For a deal to work, Tsipras will need a solution that is acceptable to his party or else may be pushed to call a snap election or a referendum to secure a mandate for an agreement.

Under the austerity measures imposed by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank in two bailouts, Greece's economic output has fallen 25 percent, wages and pensions have been slashed, and one in four Greeks is jobless.

The Greek government has resisted demands for pension cuts or tax rises, arguing that the austerity imposed on the southern European country had made the crisis worse. A senior Syriza lawmaker said on Sunday that previous ideas put forward by Juncker would have led to a "social holocaust".

"Democracy cannot be blackmailed, dignity cannot be bargained," the Syriza party said in a statement on Sunday, announcing its planned protest.

"Workers, the unemployed, young people, the Greek people and the rest of the peoples of Europe will send a loud message of resistance to the alleged one-way path of austerity, resistance to the blackmail and scare-mongering."

European ministers have played down the prospect of a final agreement on Monday but hope a political understanding can be reached in time for a full deal by the end of June.

Merkel's Bavarian allies warned against giving in to Greece, with senior Christian Social Union lawmaker Hans Michelbach saying he saw no realistic chance of an agreement on Monday.

"If the EU lets the government in Athens get away with its intransigence, we can bury the euro," Michelbach said in a statement on Sunday.

"Either Greece declares itself willing for a viable solution or the country must leave the euro. The euro zone could cope with the consequences of a Greek exit," he said. — Reuters

Germany to beef up spy defenses against allies – report

BERLIN - Germany plans to beef up its counterintelligence tactics against allied countries in response to revelations of widespread US spying, Der Spiegel magazine reported Sunday.

The weekly said the German government was considering deploying its own agents to keep tabs on Western secret services and embassies on German soil including those of the United States and also Britain.

It said the domestic intelligence service aimed to glean precise information about foreign spies using diplomatic cover and technical equipment at diplomatic missions used to snoop on German officials and the country's citizens.

"This step would be an about-face from the decades-long practice of systematically monitoring the activities of countries such as China, Russia and North Korea but rarely the activities of Western partners," Spiegel said.

It said the plans would require the final approval of Merkel's office as well as the foreign and interior ministries.

The reported initiatives follow leaks by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden that US intelligence agencies had eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone and collected vast amounts of online data and telephone records from average citizens.

Media reports last year said that equipment installed on the roofs of the US and British embassies in central Berlin was used for snooping.

Spiegel also reports in its upcoming issue on a suspected attack by Chinese spies on the German government ahead of the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia last September.

It said high-ranking German officials from several ministries as well as banks had been sent Chinese cyber-espionage malware under the guise of an exchange of information among economic advisors to the G20 governments.

A government spokeswoman told Spiegel that the attempt "to compromise information security at the chancellor's office" had been successfully rebuffed.

Merkel said Saturday ahead of a summit with French President Francois Hollande that they would discuss bolstering citizens' data protection with "European communication networks" that bypass US Internet giants. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Merkel calls Obama over suspicion US monitored her phone

BERLIN - The German government has obtained information that the United States may have monitored the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel and she called President Barack Obama on Wednesday to demand an immediate clarification, a German government spokesman said.

"We swiftly sent a request to our American partners asking for an immediate and comprehensive clarification," the spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

He added that Merkel had made clear to Obama that if the information proved trued it would be "completely unacceptable" and represent a "grave breach of trust".  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com