Why would Trump call out Germany saying they owe the US and NATO 'vast sums' of money for defence?

Question

Why would Trump call out Germany on their spending budget for NATO?

He tweets 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!"

• Would he be doing it as a tactic for other NATO members to up their defence spending?

• or is this something regarding relations between Germany and the US?

• or is he just unfamiliar with how NATO works?

Germany have rejected these claims with "there is no debt account at NATO" stated by German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

I'm just unsure why it would it be necessary seeing as Germany are on target for the 2% GDP defence target by 2024.

A direct comment from the NATO annual address on March 13th, 2017.

OANA LUNGESCU: Financial Times.

Q: Hi, Arthur Beesley here. In your assessment, Secretary General, are efforts by Germany to increase defence spending, which are underway, are those efforts sufficient at this time? Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG: The important thing is that Germany has turned a corner. Because after years of decline in defence spending they have now stopped the cuts in defence spending and actually started to increase. And if you, afterwards you will have the Annual Report, I think its table three, then you will see the real change in defence spending for all individual allies and Germany has an increase in 2016. I of course expect Germany as all other Allies to continue to keep up the momentum and to continue to invest more in defence and of course I expect that from all allies but Germany being the biggest economy in Europe it really matters what Germany does. And therefore I welcome the very clear messages from Chancellor Merkel and from other German leaders that they will now start to invest more in our defence. This is not just about, you know a call from United States and from President Trump, this is also about that it is a decision made by 28 Allies together, it is in Europe’s own interest to invest more in defence and I welcome the fact that Germany has started. Germany as many other Allies has a long way to go but at least after years of decline we have now seen that they are moving in the right direction and this has been my main issue when I met different political leaders in different NATO capitals since I became Secretary General in 2014 and of course I spoke with Chancellor Merkel recently and that was one of the issues we discussed, how can we make sure that we continue to invest more in defense.

Answer 1

Trump is only calling out Germany in particular because he just recently had a meeting with Merkel and it was topical. It is generally Trump's position that all NATO members should pay a higher amount. Trump has claimed this multiple times.

While Germany is on track for its 2024 target, NATO membership does does dicated that it should be funded at a 2% GDP rate. Part of Trump's argument is that they shouldn't have fallen below 2% in the first place. Of course this is complicated by many circumstances, but the core of Trump's argument remains: NATO membership says 2% and Germany (as well as most NATO members) do not hit that mark.

Trump ratcheting up pressure on defense spending of NATO members is certainly his way of trying to increase their spending. This is his stated goal. I wouldn't go so far as to call it strong-arming since so far it's only been talk and no action, but it is part of a continued effort to put pressure on NATO members to increase spending.

Answer 2

Many people believe that the current global order is the final form of human government, a natural end point of sociocultural evolution. Others just see it as a world order that emerged after the fall of the soviet union.

Historically every few decades a new deal was forged between the major players:

• The first modern deal was Peace of Westphalia, central to the world order that developed over the following centuries, set foundation for international relations we know today
• Treaty of Utrecht that introduced the concept of balance of power
• Congress of Vienna
• Versailles Treaty
• Potsdam Conference
• Fall of the soviet union

After WWII the world was basically divided between american and soviet empire. The foundation of the american order was bretton woods system, IMF, world bank and NATO. USA as a naval empire established the global trade system where the dollar was agreed to be used as the global currency. USA kept sea lines secure and shielded it from external treat. All the countries involved in the system benefited from it.

But that has changed. After nixon visited china, Chinese join the system and in a long run it changed everything. Today USA noticed that they cannot longer afford to be the only country that funds the system and keep it safe. China grew to become a big threat to the american world order. Obama noticed that and started the pivot to Asia. The new military doctrine aka. 'the future war with china' was presented in 2010.

What Chinese are doing:

• America rules the sea and this is not gonna changed for another 50 year. The knowledge needed to operate a carrier group is not something you can buy on open market. It is extremely complicated to develop. Instead Chinese chose to invest in the land communication between china, india and europe. Anticipated cumulative investment over an indefinite timescale is variously put at US$4 trillion or US$8 trillion.
• they are investing in military defense, Artificial islands in South China Sea, hyper sonic missile. During taiwan strait crisis aircraft carrier was deployed between the taiwan and china, and chinese could not do anything. Today most analytics agree that in case of war, Taiwan will fall to china.
• China is setting up a competitor to IMF and World bank

What is America doing? Obama's planed to setup an international trade deals between USA and pacific countries and between USA and europe, therefore isolating China. However blue collar american workers were the ones that would have paid the bill, with less work opportunities and lower wages, so Clinton lost the elections.

So what about Germany? Well, Germany is a huge exporter, so many think that they are the ones that benefit from the american world order, but are not willing to pay the bill for it. What's the bill? USA wants to focus on pacific, they cannot longer afford to defend europe and europe is not able to defend themselves. The intervention in Libya was supposed to be carried out by Europeans, but america had to step in, because european armies were out of munition after few weeks. Libya is a country of 6 mln people, if that was too much then what about Russia? USA wants their allies to share the cost and be serious about army.

Does it matter? Is europe under threat? Who knows, it is worth to remember that WWII started in far east in manchuria. The british could no longer afford to be present there, so Japan filled the void. Nobody wants Putin to fill the void.