Posted on 05/28/2017 3:34:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
For all the ink spilled about Trump being a loose cannon, there are no surprises here. Bad relations with Germany if he won were a fait accompli. This is the course Americans chose. Now we get the consequences, for better or worse.
The last 70 years of peace in Europe were pretty boring.
“The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I’ve experienced that in the last few days,” Merkel told a crowd at an election rally in Munich, southern Germany.
“We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands,” she added…
The chancellor had just returned from a G7 summit which wound up Saturday without a deal between the US and the other six major advanced nations on upholding the 2015 Paris climate accords.
Merkel on Saturday labelled the result of the “six against one” discussion “very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory”.
Trump made his feelings plain this week. Upbraiding Europe for not meeting its defense obligations under NATO was fair, but doing it without an explicit affirmation of America’s commitment to Article 5 undercut the importance of the alliance. He wouldn’t commit to the Paris Accord on climate change either — also foreseeable given his campaign promises to revisit the treaty — and reportedly told his inner circle that he intends to withdraw from the agreement. He called Germany “very bad” on trade even though German automakers employ more than 100,000 Americans. All of that came amid profound philosophical disagreements about immigration and the fact that Trump palpably seems more interested in better relations with Moscow than with Berlin. Merkel finally took the hint.
Since 1945, the supreme strategic goal in Europe of the USSR and then Russia was the severing of the US-German alliance. Trump delivered.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 28, 2017
Believe me, Germany’s future nuclear arsenal will be the best nuclear arsenal. Really terrific!
Maybe this’ll be smoothed over the next time we have a multilateralist Democrat or hawkish Republican in the White House, but I don’t know. If Merkel thought this was nothing more than a Trump-related blip in U.S. relations, would she have made comments as dramatic as these? Right-wing nationalists in the U.S. loathe her for her open-borders policy towards the Middle East and admire various elements of Putinism — his “strength” towards enemies, his image as a defender of Christianity against the leftist/Islamist hordes, his effort to boost nationalists like Trump and Le Pen by sabotaging their electoral opponents. That sentiment will survive Trump’s presidency; the only question is how much of the right will adopt it.
Democrats, meanwhile, are drifting away from Obama/Clinton-style neoliberalism towards harder leftism, which is skeptical of NATO for its own reasons. Bernie Sanders sounded a lot like Trump at times during the last campaign when discussing NATO, once suggesting that we should build a new alliance for the age of terrorism that incorporates not just NATO allies but Russia as well. The far-left candidate in France’s election, Jean-Luc Melenchon, was also soft on Putin. Trump’s next Democratic opponent will be a Russia hawk for reasons of pure partisanship, because suspicions of collusion between him and Putin run so deep among liberals, but in 2024? Who knows if either party’s nominee will want to revive the U.S.-German anti-Russian alliance, especially if Trump has succeeded in the interim in making some sort of grand bargain with Moscow.
But it’s not all necessarily bad news. Maybe the EU, anchored by the French-German alliance, is built to last — for awhile — and will begin to pick up the burden of providing for its own defense. Germany will develop nuclear weapons so that it’s not outgunned by traditional enemies to its west and east; eastern Europe will begin to militarize more aggressively knowing that U.S. support against Russia is no longer a given and that Berlin won’t play nice forever. So long as the threat from Russia looms large, Europe has a reason to hang together. And what happens long-term if Russia remains a fading power with a weak oil-dependent economy, removing the urgency for friendly relations among European countries? Probably nothing good! But that’s a problem for President Ivanka to worry about circa 2050.
Here’s France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, at the NATO summit greeting the leader of the new dominant power in Europe. Look at it this way: By 2100, it’ll all be part of the caliphate anyway.
That’s certainly the false impression the leftists and neo-cons are trying for. That’s why we need to let as many people as possible know that American financed welfare for rich Germany is not the pro-American stance by any stretch. That country can certainly pay for its own defense without relying on our expensive weapons, military bases, troop deployments, etc. on their behalf.
At least this nonsense is making very clear how much contempt these types have for American taxpayers (who should be supporting the entire world according to them) and how essentially colonialist their views are (America is responsible for the safety and well-being of everyone; no one else should stand on their own two feet without us carrying them). The US paying 70% of NATO’s expenses is no problem for them; only an American president telling the other countries to contribute more to their own defense so we don’t have to do it all.
This murkle-of-life dunce is too slow: President Trump was basically telling everyone about this for almost two years starting with his GOP primary campaign.
What will happen is that German megalomaniacal self-righteousness will sooner or later propel European disunity.
If not ‘shopped, then the Judeo-Christian God has a great sense of humor.
Well we sure can’t count on you outside U.K.
I’d say you’re screwed.
....End of an era...
If true, end of an error.
what kind of weak analysis is this? Merkel doesn’t want to spend 2% on defense and neither does France but somehow they are going to outgun U.S and defend against Russian and Islamist on their own? I should be more straight forward. Their socialist programs and the influx of immigrants means they CAN’T spend 2% on defense as currently constituted. So who thinks the strategy is to get rid of relations with the U.S and spend more to defend themselves in a response to Trump asking them to spend more on defense? If they do want to “defend” themselves and make another go at conquering Europe through military means again...well, we all know how that story has ended at least twice.
Why are we still reading articles by this bitter retard AllahPundit?
SOUND FAMILIAR ? - GERMANY IS QUIETLY BUILDING A EUROPEAN ARMY UNDER ITS COMMAND
https://youtu.be/-z1YwhFAtKQ
(Germany, Chech Republic and Romania)
So Germany, which started 2 World Wars, requiring the loss of 100s of 1000s of American youth, and now risks starting a third with incredibly irresponsible immigration policies . . .
Just unreal. Wake up Germans, get rid of this bitch
That breaks my heart./s
It is long past time Europe pull its own weight.
Hot Air is a full on Globalist site. The EU NOT Russia is our enemy.
OVomit met with Merkel right before the G7 meeting to ass-ure her that the Global Deep State traitors would soon be taking over....and not to take DJT seriously.
He is undercutting foreign policy, and isn’t that breaking some kind of law? I guess laws only matter for us little people.
I think what most of us are thinking is:
Poor Merkel...your free ride is over.
“...no one else should stand on their own two feet without us carrying them.”
At the recommendation of a freeper post I watch a youtube about the Thunderbolt fighters at the end of WWII (”end of the reich” or something.) The pilots talked of the devastation of Germany - it’s major cities in ruin. “How anybody survived down there is beyond me!”
Then they showed the destruction as they flew over.
All I could think about was how remarkable it was that they rebuilt so quickly - and after LOSING the war. Of course they (and Japan) got rebuilt so quickly with a lot of our help. And that was the best thing that we could have done - and turned them into long-time allies. (I had hoped that Clinton would have done more to help Russia and get them on our side after the Soviet Union fell).
BUT - they do need to learn to walk on their own. Funny how they talk about the Paris Climate thing first! And most of the countries are already putting in their 2% GDP. Pretty sure that we won’t be closing any bases or pulling out too many troops. They make it sound like we are - but I doubt it.
Europe is going Muslim. The people there are whipped by elitist P.C. and can’t save themselves. They lost the power of free speech.
We sure won’t be able to save them once the Muslims take over and start killing off the white Europeans who won’t convert - the Infidels.
This is sad for what is dying - Europe. Germany has made clear that Germany wants it’s own European army with mandatory consolidation among all the nations. We surely don’t want to be out to protect a communist/Muslim super power. We will have wholly different philosophies and purposes - nothing in common. They should open their border for immigration from America for our communists.
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