Germamy to U.S. President Donald Trump: Nope. We don’t owe the U.S. Any money. That’s not the way NATO works.
Once again it appears that Trump’s bumpersticker/talk radio slogans are at varience with reality:
President Trump’s Saturday tweet accusing Germany of owing the United States “vast sums of money” for NATO might have been an attempt to put pressure on the European ally. But Berlin has rejected his claim while also questioning his understanding of NATO finances.
On Sunday, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen called the criticism “inaccurate,” without mentioning the president’s name.
“NATO does not have a debt account,” von der Leyen said, according to her ministry. In reality, NATO has only a small logistical budget, which relies on funding by all member states. The vast majority of NATO members’ total resources are managed domestically.
And, once again, a Trump assertion is questioned by several experts:
The criticism echoed that of other experts, including former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder. “Trump’s comments misrepresent the way NATO functions,” Daalder told The Washington Post on Saturday. “The president keeps saying that we need to be paid by the Europeans for the fact that we have troops in Europe or provide defense there. But that’s not how it works.”
Von der Leyen also indirectly criticized Trump’s plan to reduce funding for U.N. peacekeeping missions. German defense expenditure was not exclusively dedicated to NATO missions, she emphasized, and additional German funding would be used for U.N. peacekeeping missions, for instance. “What we want is a fair burden-sharing, and in order to achieve that, we need a modern understanding of security,” von der Leyen said.
The rather unusual rebuke of Trump by a German defense minister indicates growing concerns in Berlin over transatlantic relations. The percentage of Germans who view the United States as a trustworthy ally has dropped from 59 percent in November to 22 percent in February. In recent months, Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s outspoken vice chancellor and foreign minister, has even called Trump a “threat.”
As the Washington Post notes, no matter what this has not deterred Trump & Co. from using this as a line to rally supporters:
Despite these critiques, this line of argument has been a near-constant refrain for Trump and his administration. Since the campaign, he’s argued that other countries aren’t contributing what they should for the defense alliance. NATO members are urged to contribute 2 percent of their GDP to defense spending. Germany pays 1.2 percent; the United States kicks in more than 3 percent. Four other countries — Greece, Estonia, Poland and Britain — also meet their obligation.
Those numbers, though, don’t tell the whole story.
Since World War II, Germany has intentionally kept its military small. The country defines itself by its pacifism and its commitment to the idea of “never again.” Germany’s defense spending — or lack thereof — has frequently been criticized and mocked in the past. In 2014, for instance, German forces made headlines when they were forced to use broomsticks instead of machine guns during a NATO exercise, exposing the state of its underequipped military.
And, as has been clear, Trump does not back down for an assertion — even one that could hurt a decades-long alliance vital to U.S. interests — in the face of facts that contradict political polemics.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.