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[kmag]

The charter we signed "forced" us, as it did all of these countries that signed it. You could ask why they signed at all if they weren't committed to spending 2% GDP on it as specified and instead rely on US money to handle their defense.

It doesn't force a 2% spend and it's not in the NATO charter. The 2% spend was an aspirational goal which countries pledged to in 2014 and the target date for that spend is something like 2024

It's very difficult for Germany to efficiently spend that amount of money given their other treaty commitments namely the 1990 "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" which limits the size of their men under arms.

 

[airmangataosenai]

I mean, isn't the point of a national election to decide who represents the country?
He is the president of the US.
The only people not responsible for him are those who voted against him, and thats a serious minority of Americans.

Weird way of framing it. The number of people who did vote for him are an even larger minority.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

What percentage is Germany spending?

 

[Xando]

What percentage is Germany spending?

1.2

 

[mlclmtckr]

Wait so was this bill on behalf of the German military? Or does this dumbass think Germany owes America or NATO money directly?

 

[Klocker]

Yea, let's encourage Germany to ramp up arms production to world class levels again.

Was working just fine for a reason you orange idiot. Pick up a history book one in a while.

 

[RenditMan]

Did you stop as soon as you thought you got your answer?

Which is great, 8 years of not doing what they said they would gets reversed on a timescale of another 8 years.

Woo hoo.

 

[gutter_trash]

1.2

Germany should just include counter-terrorism policing into the miltary budget and voila, 2%

the US has bloated their spending, including multiple government agencies while many other countries have more effiecient centralized miltary agencies due to their gerographical size

 

[MUnited83]

The charter we signed "forced" us, as it did all of these countries that signed it. You could ask why they signed at all if they weren't committed to spending 2% GDP on it as specified and instead rely on US money to handle their defense.

It didn't force anyone at all, it was never a requirement to begin with.
And if anything, the only one that "owes" shit, is the US, for constantly abusing NATO for their own gain and imperial bullshit. They should have to pay back for every single life lost from NATO members that fought US pointless wars.
The US can fuck off.

 

[BocoDragon]

Trump is a fucking moron.

Charging people for American/Western hegemony?

American military protecting Europe/NATO is America's big advantage in the world... and you're acting like it's a burden you need to be paid for?

It's fundamentally backwards.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Which is great, 8 years of not doing what they said they would gets reversed on a timescale of another 8 years.

Woo hoo.

That's really not how it's ever worked at all. What your saying now is America should go back on the agreement and demand more. No member has violated the agreement in any way

Edit: The 2006 part has no timeline attached. There was at no point a requirement during 2006-2014. What you're looking for here just doesn't exist

Edit2: I do want to explain it well because it's important. No one ever 'said they would' jump to 2% instantly. Of course that's crazy and very damaging.

It's important to understand that the agreement was always for countries to meet that goal in the best way possible. Of course it doesn't help NATO for countries to start spending money that is needed elsewhere. The 2014 agreement came into effect after the large financial crisis threatened to push numbers back further because that money was needed to rebuild their country.

In 2014 the agreement became stronger but don't mistake that to mean people weren't adhering to the agreement before that. There was at no point a requirement that countries jump recklessly to 2%GDP spending. Such a requirement would incredibly damaging to everyone involved.

This 'bill' is nonsense is every form and has no basis in any agreement the US has ever been a party to. The NATO allies continue to move responsibly toward that goal of 2% spending, it would benefit no one for them to pull out spending from other programs suddenly to start funding unneeded military expansion

 

[Muffin1611]

Which is great, 8 years of not doing what they said they would gets reversed on a timescale of another 8 years.

Woo hoo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guideline

By definition, following a guideline is never mandatory. Guidelines are not binding and are not enforced.

Like, do I have a better grasp on the English language than some Americans or what exactly is going on in this thread

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Trump is a fucking moron.

Charging people for American/Western hegemony?

Thats America's big advantage in the world... and you're acting like it's a burden you need to be paid for?

It's fundamentally backwards.

This is what happens when you have a president who's never read a book as an adult. :/

At least when you talked to W about the economy and history, he knew his shit, even if you don't agree with him or he fucked it up.

 

[Marvie_3]

Trump is such a fucking moron

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

If countries start leaving NATO, then we're in real trouble. If Russia wanted to invade a country like Ukraine or Finland, there would be no obligation to invade it- But regardless, I don't think the administration would do anything.

The goal of Putin is to destroy the EU and NATO. Undermining the strong US-German relationship is a major boon to putin.

Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West—and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump. Over the past decade, Russia has boosted right-wing populists across Europe. It loaned money to Marine Le Pen in France, well-documented transfusions of cash to keep her presidential campaign alive. Such largesse also wended its way to the former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who profited “personally and handsomely” from Russian energy deals, as an American ambassador to Rome once put it. (Berlusconi also shared a 240-year-old bottle of Crimean wine with Putin and apparently makes ample use of a bed gifted to him by the Russian president.)

There’s a clear pattern: Putin runs stealth efforts on behalf of politicians who rail against the European Union and want to push away from NATO. He’s been a patron of Golden Dawn in Greece, Ataka in Bulgaria, and Jobbik in Hungary. Joe Biden warned about this effort last year in a speech at the Brookings Institution: “President Putin sees such political forces as useful tools to be manipulated, to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit.” Ruptures that will likely multiply after Brexit—a campaign Russia’s many propaganda organs bombastically promoted.

Putin is helping the orchestrating the extremism in Europe, giving support to far-right groups and far-right politicians in an attempt to create a divide and conquor. Once Europeans are fighting each others, different groups of them will leave.
Not all countries in Europe are members of the EU and not all are members of NATO. The EU is first and foremost a trade deal, and as we saw with the Greece crisis and the migrant crisis, EU has a stifling inability to get things done once we go beyond the murky waters of Trade policy.


It is becoming really dangerous with Putin. Here is a dictator who has all the hallmarks of a madman wanting to restore the soviet borders, and whose economy is shit. He is also a killer in every sense of the word, and then Donald Trump comes along and makes the situation incredible dangerous.

Assassination attempts against the PM in montenegro, helping with the isolationists campaigns for UK, Holland, France, Greece and others, having pro-Russian allies doing tens of thousands of cyber attack in Ukraine every month to stall the governments ability to function properly and create dissent.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

Yea, let's encourage Germany to ramp up arms production to world class levels again.

Was working just fine for a reason you orange idiot. Pick up a history book one in a while.

Yep, the only thing keeping the Germans from destroying Europe yet again is not having their arms production at world class levels.

 

[MUnited83]

Trump is a fucking moron.

Charging people for American/Western hegemony?

American military protecting Europe/NATO is America's big advantage in the world... and you're acting like it's a burden you need to be paid for?

It's fundamentally backwards.

Yep.
And the fucking dipshit still increased the military budget despite complaining the US spends too much.
Like WTF

 

[Xando]

Also quite interesting that this was kind of mentioned in the steele dossier

Page 8

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensing...es-to-russia?utm_term=.wgoojV60Zo#.luYxYrAGWx

 

[VeeP]

Yea, let's encourage Germany to ramp up arms production to world class levels again.

Was working just fine for a reason you orange idiot. Pick up a history book one in a while.

So your saying Germans are basically Krogans?

 

[Mahonay]

Also quite interesting that this was kind of mentioned in the steele dossier

Page 8

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensing...es-to-russia?utm_term=.wgoojV60Zo#.luYxYrAGWx

I mean, this part of Trump being extremely anti-NATO has always had pretty obvious ties to Putin. People need to realize how scary it is.

 

[RoKKeR]

What an ass.

 

[Azuran]

LMAO I need a video of this meeting. It's obvious Merkel put him in is place considering Cheeto was acting like angry baby during the photoshoot afterwards.

Are you tired of winning yet America?

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

The con man that stiffed his workers and contractors is talking about owed money. Fuck off.

 

[Lautaro]

Sure because asking for huge reparations from Germany end up so well last time.

 

[Surfinn]

The con man that stiffed his workers and contractors is talking about owed money. Fuck off.

Lol exactly

 

[Mahonay]

Sure because asking for huge reparations from Germany end up so well last time.

Can we stop these ridiculous posts? It's offensive to modern Germany is it not?

 

[KDR_11k]

His family is from Germany too, ffs

Ejected for draft dodging.

 

[bionic77]

Trump is a fucking moron.

Charging people for American/Western hegemony?

American military protecting Europe/NATO is America's big advantage in the world... and you're acting like it's a burden you need to be paid for?

It's fundamentally backwards.

We elected him and 40+% of the country agree with everything he does.

Freedom had a nice run. Let's give being the bad guys a chance!

 

[Mahonay]

We elected him and 40+% of the country agree with everything he does.

Freedom had a nice run. Let's give being the bad guys a chance!

His last approval rating was 37%

 

[Xando]

His last approval rating was 37%

Which is still 35% too much

 

[Mahonay]

Which is still 35% too much

Yuuuuup.

 

[Condom]

.

 

[shawnbuddy]

Trump has tried to big dog people as his main negotiation tactic so far and failed every time. If you can't back it up that's layout riskiest move, it puts you in a position of weakness when you get stared down. No wonder his companies kept failing.

 

[norm9]

Terrible businessman. Should have asked for enough to balance the budget and rich people taxcuts.

 

[Surfinn]

Terrible businessman. Should have asked for enough to balance the budget and rich people taxcuts.

A business man who won't let you see how he handles his money.

 

[bionic77]

His last approval rating was 37%

I bet if you phrased the question about what he did to Germany he would get at least 45.

Same with most things that fuck over Mexico or favor security over freedom.

 

[Mahonay]

A business man who won't let you see how he handles his money.

Con man is more accurate.

 

[kess]

Obviously, Trump has no authority to hand anyone a "bill" for anything. This is about as real as the stacks of paper on the table during the press conference.

 

[ChryZ]

So this is why he was so pouty

He probably asked for a check and Merkel shoved the pen up his ass.

 

[digdug2k]

It doesn't force a 2% spend and it's not in the NATO charter. The 2% spend was an aspiration goal which countries pledged to in 2014 and the target date for that spend is something like 2024

It's very difficult for Germany to efficiently spend that amount of money given their other treaty commitments namely the 1990 "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" which limits the size of their men under arms.

I don't get the feeling any of them signed that "pledge" because they thought it was an aspiration goal. At best, it seems like most of them said, "Using GDP as some sort of measure of how much military spending you should have is dumb and it isn't going to happen, but if you want us to sign your papers, we will."

I'm kinda surprised he's so doubled down on this. Like, the real "Trumpy" thing to do if he actually believed this is what he's been saying to the schools. "Hey, we're spending too much on our military and not getting enough. We haven't actually won a war in... 70 years now? We're going to stop wasting all this cash. And European countries are going to have to pick up the slack because we're not going to play big brother to them anymore." Instead he's just all over the place with his arguments. I'm surprised I haven't seen a better journalist just run with this to tear him down yet. But... well I'm not that surprised about that either. I'm sure someone has and it just get buried on page 6 behind the other crazy shit he's does.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Lol, shut the fuck up Donny!

Lol agreed

#ShutTheFuckUpDonny

 

[cyba89]

Yea, let's encourage Germany to ramp up arms production to world class levels again.

Was working just fine for a reason you orange idiot. Pick up a history book one in a while.

What are you impliying here?

 

[Mumei]

As a European, I believe we (EU member states that are part of NATO) should just leave the organisation. I think our EU treaties are more than enough to defend ourselves if it ever came to that (which I doubt).

I think in the abstract this is true; the EU countries are collectively as wealthy as the US is. But in practice, it is a consensus by analysts (even those who do support a reduced US role in order to force European allies into better performance) agree that the commitment improves regional security, because NATO's Article 5 guarantee undergirds the security policies of important European actors. If it were revoked, it would destabilize the institutional order—not because of the return of security competition but because of a decline in security cooperation, which would cause a "collapse in concerted power in Europe" and "incapacitate European foreign policy."

The EU and the United States also have a deeply asymmetric defense interdependence, which further complicates things (especially when considering the predicted issues with security cooperation). Right now, the US security system encourages allies to forego spending on their own military and independent capabilities in lieu of being part of a broader globalized American security architecture, which essentially allies every other powerful state to the U.S. system—save China and Russia, both of which are blocked from that system. EU countries are organized around that assumption.

I'm not saying that they can't do it, mind you, but I think it'd be a lot more difficult in practice than it sounds in theory.

 

[ebullientprism]

I refuse to believe even Trump is this stupid and I think he is plenty stupid. This has Putin's prints all over it.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Why do we have to suffer 2nd hand embarrassment because of this man?

 

[Ladekabel]

 

[Surfinn]

Lol one of the best gifs to come from this admin.

 

[Benjamin1981]

Is this real? Can't stop shaking my head at this stupid moron. At first it was funny, now it's just sad. And he barely is 3 month into his presidency.

 

[whyamihere]

That's not how NATO works

First post!

 

[Aselith]

First post!

The NATO base just got 10 feet smaller due to sanctions