Posted on 03/19/2017 6:54:35 AM PDT by KyCats
The pleasantries, lack of handshake between Trump and Merkel notwithstanding, are officially over.
One day after Trump returned to his favorite medium to slam Germany for abusing NATO's funding scheme, and US defense spending generosity, accusing Germany of owing "vast sums" of money to both NATO and the US, Germany has struck back. As a reminder, this is what Trump tweeted on Saturday morning:
"Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"
That in turn, was followed on Sunday morning by a statement by German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen in which she responded to Trump, rejecting the US president's claim: "There is no debit account at NATO," von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that it was wrong to link the alliance's target for members to spend 2 percent of their economic output on defense by 2024 solely to NATO.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
He should have shook her hand.
Idiotic. Sounds like you might not have been front line infantry.
I was in Germany for 13 months in the early 70’s, 1-2, and we had about 300,000 troops, and hundreds of thousands of dependents along with civilian employees spending billions of dollars supporting the German economy annually.Plus we paid rent on all facilities and damages for all our exercises and they still look at us as bullies. Let them defend themselves.
Maybe you’d better give a little consideration to our wounded in the ongoing wars who are transported to Germany for treatment. We have immense installations in Germany which are indispensable for our defense as well. Distance from the battlefields is a major factor in saving lives.
They seem to forget things like the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan don’t they?
It’s specifically the NATO alliance and America’s assurances of intervention that has allowed Europe to embrace the socialism that enables sloth and grows to consume ever more resources. Meanwhile American extremists look at Europe and see the free sh!t giveaway and demand America match Europe’s generosity. But for American defense dollars, Europe couldn’t cost-shift their safety onto the backs of American taxpayers.
Ms Muggle is a devoted believer in the browning of the German race to create hybrid vigor and as such the ‘migrants’ are her people.
Yes, it’s time to abandon NATO to their fate, no matter what that may be.
For those of you out there that think we should continue membership and continue to honor the treaty, please weigh in with your reasoning.
Let’s have that debate.
He did, at least 2-3 separate occasions.
You aren’t shown those by the media, but the threads here posted them, at the time.
“but our bases in Germany also benefit us in providing some implicit warning to Putin”
Why is this beneficial to US interests, rather than antagonistic to them?
This benefits ONLY Western Europe.
“We have immense installations in Germany which are indispensable for our defense as well.”
That’s ridiculous and cannot be supported.
Those installations benefit Europe exclusively.
He did shake her hand. Unless the picture I saw of them shaking hands was photoshopped.
#23 has it right, Germany has benefitted economically by our personnel and their dependants pouring billions into Germany’s economy, and paying for their defense.
I think we should move our facilities and soldiers to Poland who pays their full Nato share. Poland wanted us to give them a missile shield and they would gladly find us the space for large medical and air base space. Also, its got to be less expensive to billet in Poland than Germany. The savings will help with our Debt.
Exactly.
Russia is not the Soviet Union. Russia is not our enemy.
We have 2 enemies, two forces that are seeking our total annihilation, and they are in alliance against US:
1. International islam
2. The globalist left, led by the EU.
Russia is actively resisting both of these enemies and is the only country effectively fighting islam.
That seems to me to put us on the same side. No sense in needlessly antagonizing our friends.
“We really need to remove all our troops from Europe. “
If there’s any threat to Germany it’s from their ‘migrant’ population and our troops wont be of any help on that battle.
Germany will start another war...always have and always will.
Was going to write similar. Many a life have been saved by being able to have the ability to treat our wounded in Germany.
“We have immense installations in Germany which are indispensable for our defense as well. Distance from the battlefields is a major factor in saving lives.”
I also believe a strong defense of Europe and our allies have kept the world and the United States from fighting a real world war III. And I do not trust Putin’s Russia anymore than I trusted anyone running the Soviet Union.
Putin is an evil (yes evil) man who has been responsible for the murder of thousands of people. Keep him and his like contained over there.
Yes, the European countries do need to contribute 2% of their GDP to providing for NATO funding. If they have not been in the past, it’s damn time they started. Because although I do think a strong defense is called for, I’m sick and tired of having our troops play international military all by themselves and on our dime alone.
I’ve been hearing about this so I looked it up. He may of shaken her hand (or not) but they seem to be referring to a point at which Merkel specifically asked him to shake hands and he didn’t reply. Accounts vary - it was loud and he didn’t hear the request or he intentionally ignored her. I’m willing to guess he ignored her because he is establishing that she, as her country’s representative, is socially in the dog house for decades of shafting the US.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/03/17/angela-merkel-donald-trump-handshake/99310398/
There are several pics of them shaking hands.
Germany, moralistic in its relationship with Greece, is now called a deadbeat. Make popcorn.
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