Germany Renews Commitment to International Defense After Trump Admin Criticism
President Donald Trump has long argued that America’s allies should be paying their “fair share” of international defense spending to meet obligations to the North Atlantic Treated Organization and the United Nations.
And it seems that — under a bit of pressure — German Chancellor Angela Merkel may finally be coming around to seeing things Trump’s way.
According to Reuters, Merkel announced on Aug. 13 that the European nation will renew its commitment to Western allies by working to increase defense spending to the amount agreed upon by all members of NATO — the investment of 2 percent of each member nation’s gross domestic product into defense measures, per the 2014 Wales Summit.
“We said we want to achieve 1.5% by 2024. And that is our common will,” Merkel told reporters in Stralsund, Germany. “And then we still have a lot of work to do for the next few years.”
“This means in the direction of 2%, and we will continue to go in this direction also after 2024,” she added.
The largest economy in Europe, Germany put just 1.2 percent of its GDP toward defense spending in 2017, according to Forbes.
But Merkel said later in the week that no matter how painful, the nation’s first defense spending increase would be a strong jump to 1.41 percent of GDP by next year, Stars and Stripes reported.
“There are good reasons for the [U.S.] bases here in Germany but at the same time we know that we must take the pains to get the German military in better shape,” she told reporters Wednesday after a meeting with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.
Much of the chancellor’s recommitment was perceived as an attempt by the chancellor to reorient the international defense spending dialogue.
There are 34,000 U.S. troops in Germany protecting Germans and Europeans. I can tell you this: @RolandNelles & @SPIEGELONLINE are wrong. Americans don’t understand why Germany isn’t meeting its NATO obligations & helping the West. And they are growing very annoyed by it. https://t.co/cHH2FaUqkZ
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 8, 2019
The topic of defense spending became heated for the first time in months this August when U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell suggested America may pull tens of thousands of soldiers out of bases protecting the nation should it not make a more serious effort to meet its obligations to NATO.
“It is actually offensive to assume that the U.S. taxpayer must continue to pay to have 50,000-plus Americans in Germany, but the Germans get to spend their surplus on domestic programs,” Grenell told one German news agency, according to Fox News.
To those who have followed the issue, Grenell’s remarks came as no surprise.
Trump and members of his administration have long pointed to Germany as a key power shirking responsibilities to its foreign allies — particularly as other nations have come around to the idea of becoming more self-reliant in recent years.
“People are paying and I am very happy with the fact they are paying,” Trump said in April, according to Stars and Stripes. “Germany, honestly, is not paying their fair share.”
But even as the president said in April, that “is all changing,” and Merkel’s renewed commitment to Western defense initiatives signifies just that.
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