Trump Tells Europe to “Pay its Fair Share” For NATO After Macron Calls for EU Army

[Swordsmyth]

U.S. President Donald Trump in a statement just minutes after landing in Paris said it was very insulting of French President Emmanuel Macron to suggest that Europe should build its own military to protect it from the United States, Russia, and China.
“President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the US subsidizes greatly!” Trump said (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061003186125856769) in a Twitter message on Friday.

President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061003186125856769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

According to media reports, Macron has advocated for mobilizing a European military force since his election last year, but brought it up again while touring World War I memorials on Tuesday. Trump appears to have been responding to Macron’s Tuesday statement that a “real European army” would protect the continent “with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army.”
French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said Thursday that the potential EU joint military force could be used for tackling the consequences of natural disasters, for providing humanitarian assistance and in military operations.

More at: https://www.infowars.com/trump-tells-europe-to-pay-its-fair-share-for-nato-after-macron-calls-for-eu-army/

Kill NATO!

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/comment/military-balance-blog/2018/july/figure-3-us-direct-spending-on-european-security.ashx?h=615&la=en&mw=865&w=865&hash=3ED27904E43816349A4A4443919ACEFFF68D1EF0

https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2018/07/us-and-nato-allies-costs-and-value

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/comment/military-balance-blog/2018/july/figure-3-us-direct-spending-on-european-security.ashx?h=615&la=en&mw=865&w=865&hash=3ED27904E43816349A4A4443919ACEFFF68D1EF0

https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2018/07/us-and-nato-allies-costs-and-value

:rolleyes:

Who gets to decide what is direct?

More important is that even if you divide the spending that way almost all of the "indirect" spending serves European interests.

It's time to kill NATO and let the welfare queens pay for their own military.

[timosman]

:rolleyes:

Who gets to decide what is direct?

More important is that even if you divide the spending that way almost all of the "indirect" spending serves European interests.

It's time to kill NATO and let the welfare queens pay for their own military.

Start sending them preparation H instead of military support. :cool:

[Zippyjuan]

:rolleyes:

Who gets to decide what is direct?

More important is that even if you divide the spending that way almost all of the "indirect" spending serves European interests.

It's time to kill NATO and let the welfare queens pay for their own military.

Do you think we spend half of our military budget in Europe? (the only was we could be paying more than half).

[Swordsmyth]

Do you think we spend half of our military budget in Europe? (the only was we could be paying more than half).
How much do they spend to defend the US?

The members of the alliance are all equal, right?

It isn't just a scheme to get us to pay the blood and treasure for their military needs and ambitions, right?

[Anti Federalist]

I miss when this forum was in favor of pulling our troops out from far flung spots all over the globe.

[Ender]

I miss when this forum was in favor of pulling our troops out from far flung spots all over the globe.

Amen, Bro, Amen.

[Swordsmyth]

I miss when this forum was in favor of pulling our troops out from far flung spots all over the globe.


Amen, Bro, Amen.
Zippy opposes everything this forum is supposed to support.

[Anti Federalist]

Zippy opposes everything this forum is supposed to support.

See, it's only a small amount...your point was valid and he dodged right past it.

Much of the military hardware in Europe is not marked as "just for Europe".

The wings of F-16s and Navy ships are all in the Pentagon's general budget.

[Anti Globalist]

Don't just tell them to pay their fair share. Threaten to leave NATO entirely.

[Swordsmyth]

Don't just tell them to pay their fair share. Threaten to leave NATO entirely.

That is what he is leading up to.

[r3volution 3.0]

A necessary step for further integration, but unlikely to happen in this environment: bonne chance Macron.

[CaptainAmerica]

pfff. Europe couldn't even protect itself from Germany

[Ender]

pfff. Europe couldn't even protect itself from Germany

You mean the war(s) that Britain & France, with a little help from the good ol US of A, created?


The Stupidest, Most Tragic War
By Eric S. Margolis

November 10, 2018

We are now before the 100th anniversary of World War I, the war that was supposed to end all wars. While honoring the 16 million who died in this conflict, we should also condemn the memory of the politicians, officials and incompetent generals who created this horrendous blood bath.

I’ve walked most of the Western Front of the Great War, visited its battlefields and haunted forts, and seen the seas of crosses marking its innumerable cemeteries.

As a former soldier and war correspondent, I’ve always considered WWI as he stupidest, most tragic and catastrophic of all modern wars.

The continuation of this conflict, World War II, killed more people and brought more destruction on civilians in firebombed cities but, at least for me, World War I holds a special horror and poignancy. This war was not only an endless nightmare for the soldiers in their pestilential trenches, it also violently ended the previous 100 years of glorious European civilization, one of mankind’s most noble achievements.

I’ve explored the killing fields of Verdun many times and feel a visceral connection to this ghastly place where up to 1,000,000 soldiers died. I have even spent the night there, listening to the sirens that wailed without relent, and watching searchlights that pierced the night, looking for the ghosts of the French and German soldiers who died here.

Verdun’s soil was so poisoned by explosives and lethal gas that to this day it produces only withered, stunted scrub and sick trees. Beneath the surface lie the shattered remains of men and a deadly harvest of unexploded shells that still kill scores of intruders each year. The spooky Ossuaire Chapel contains the bone fragments of 130,000 men, blown to bits by the millions of high explosive shells that deluged Verdun.

The town of the same name is utterly bleak, melancholy and cursed. Young French and German officers are brought here to see firsthand the horrors of war and the crime of stupid generalship.

Amid all the usual patriotic cant from politicians, imperialists and churchmen about the glories of this slaughter, remember that World War I was a contrived conflict that was totally avoidable. Contrary to the war propaganda that still clouds and corrupts our historical view, World War I was not started by Imperial Germany.

Professor Christopher Clark in his brilliant book, `’ shows how officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia’s murder of Austro-Hungary’s Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the world’s surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary’s South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia’s desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion.
Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then Europe’s leader in social justice.

Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted ‘On to Berlin’ or ‘On to Paris.’

Few at the time understood the impending horrors of modern war or the geopolitical demons one would release. The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp foretaste of the 1914 conflict, but Europe’s grandees paid scant attention.

Even fewer grasped how the collapse of the antiquated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires would send Europe and the Mideast into dangerous turmoil that persists to our day. Or how a little-known revolutionary named Lenin would shatter Imperial Russia and turn it into the world’s most murderous state.

This demented war in Europe tuned into an even greater historic tragedy in 1917 when US President Woodrow Wilson, driven by a lust for power and prestige, entered the totally stalemated war on the Western Front. One million US troops and starvation caused by a crushing British naval blockade turned the tide of battle and led to Germany’s surrender.

Vengeful France and Britain imposed intolerable punishment on Germany, forcing it to accept full guilt for the war, an untruth that persists to this day. The result was Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists. If an honorable peace had been concluded in 1917, neither Hitler nor Stalin might have seized power and millions of lives would have been saved. This is the true tragedy of the Great War.

Let us recall the words of the wise Benjamin Franklin: `No good war, no bad peace.’

[Swordsmyth]

While he said that his meetings with fellow world leaders were productive, Trump noted that it's "never easy" to raise the issue that the US foots most of the bill for military protections in Europe thanks to its outsize shouldering of the cost burden of funding NATO.
Adding insult to injury, the US is paying "hundreds of billions of dollars" for the privilege of "losing hundreds of billions of dollars" with these countries on trade. Trump demanded that, going forward, the US must be treated fairly on military spending and trade.
It is time, Trump said, for these countries to either pony up, or find a way to start protecting themselves.

Just returned from France where much was accomplished in my meetings with World Leaders. Never easy bringing up the fact that the U.S. must be treated fairly, which it hasn’t, on both Military and Trade. We pay for LARGE portions of other countries military protection,........
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061952604807274498?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
.....hundreds of billions of dollars, for the great privilege of losing hundreds of billions of dollars with these same countries on trade. I told them that this situation cannot continue - It is, and always has been, ridiculously unfair to the United States. Massive amounts.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061954325843468288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
.....of money spent on protecting other countries, and we get nothing but Trade Deficits and Losses. It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves...and Trade must be made FREE and FAIR!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061957074253418496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) During the aforementioned ceremony, Trump (along with Russian President Vladimir Putin) was treated to a stark rebuke of his nationalist agenda by increasingly unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the forces of nationalism that he said were "tearing the world apart." With this icy treatment in mind, it's hardly surprising that Trump felt the need to remind his peers who actually pays for maintaining global security.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-12/trump-slams-europe-us-must-be-treated-fairly-both-military-and-trade

[gaazn]

Macron is france's version of Rubio, an annoying wanna-be Trump who tries too hard.

[Intoxiklown]

That is what he is leading up to.

Maybe I simply interpreted the exchange differently, but I took it as Macron calling for an EU Army to be created to negate the need for NATO. There is so much realigning going on around the world, some of it stemming from certain nations removing themselves from what they deem compromising positions being used as tools by the Trump administration in an attempt to force compliance with something. I don't say that with any kind of hidden message (support or non-support for Trump or other nations, mind you. Simply being factual speaking to events that lead me to take Macron's how I did. Because if I had my way, we'd close every single military installation not on US soil and have every troop overseas on freedom birds homeward bound today.

[Swordsmyth]

Maybe I simply interpreted the exchange differently, but I took it as Macron calling for an EU Army to be created to negate the need for NATO. There is so much realigning going on around the world, some of it stemming from certain nations removing themselves from what they deem compromising positions being used as tools by the Trump administration in an attempt to force compliance with something. I don't say that with any kind of hidden message (support or non-support for Trump or other nations, mind you. Simply being factual speaking to events that lead me to take Macron's how I did.
I don't believe Macron wants to end NATO, he wants to keep the US on the hook and then create his own force to do things the US won't.
He wants to have his cake and eat it too and Trump is telling him he can't, Trump is also beating away at the NATO spending issue because he knows that the Europeans won't comply and after he gives them a few years he can say that they have had long enough and he is pulling us out of NATO.


Because if I had my way, we'd close every single military installation not on US soil and have every troop overseas on freedom birds homeward bound today.
I agree but Trump seems to believe that he needs the support of people who would object to doing that instantly and he has to set up a political excuse, hopefully he will soon begin the process and in 2020 we can expand the Senate majority and take back the House so that he has less need to please people who disagree to keep from being impeached.

Until he either puts a final end to the Russiagate nonsense or establishes that Europe is absolutely in violation of their obligations and not about to change pulling out of NATO would be the quickest way to get impeached as "Putin's puppet".