The left loves to talk Trump talk so might as well join the fun. Please tell me Trump was wrong at all here? He literally spelled out the current situation they are in and what it is now doing to US citizens in massive increased cost.
Lefties always make phony claims against Trump. All because he wants to make America great again. Meanwhile, Biden is busy making Russia great again.
The world needs Trump right now. Biden is trying to get us into ww3 and economies world wide are tanking. He was to put the US into a depression.
He is right and he is wrong. Yes, Germany was low on the Defense Spending percentage in NATO. However, he is wrong with his solution trying to make US soldiers as mercenary. He wanted Germany to be dependent on US imports to Germany, which would be much higher than what Russia was offering at that time.
Germany simply needs to buy their oil and gas from somewhere. It's easy to say that it shouldn't be from the ME, because them dictators hate democracy. Venezuela is also a bad alternative. And than there is Russia. There aren't that many flavors to go with. And if you don't want any of the above, than you got the US. And when an American president says to Germany that they shouldn't be dependent on Russia but basically must depend on the US for the bulk of it's energy ... that's when all the alarm bells go off for Germany and they simply won't comply with that idea. NATO spending. Germany knows that their army + French + Polish + UK army combined is like 3 times bigger then the Russian one. Than they still got Spain and Italy as a back up, together with tons of other little European nations. They all know that. And so when the US whines it's not enough... the answer is: the hell? This is way more then needed, but indeed far less then we agreed on paper. And that answer is given with a tiny eyeroll, but not by word.
Never once did I hear him say buy from America? I guarantee you one thing, if America paid the sam percentage to Nato as Germany there would be no NATO to protect Germany from guess who their oil supplier that they were literally paying 60m per day. Lefties hate clean nuclear, and Germany shut them down in favor of NG from Russia. Now guess what, as predicted, Russia is terrorizing Europe. We for years and now again, funded terrorist that attacked us by buying their oil. At some point globalists need to get the whole picture instead of whining about someone telling them LIKE IT IS and getting their panties in a wad. Bottom Line Trump was dead on with this, and the left crucified him for it.
He never said it, but as I posted previously, that is the only actual alternative... and so that's the message from Trump. Germany doesn't need NATO to defend itself. They need the help of other EU countries, and they will come. And when eyeballing the budgets of EU countries on their military vs Russia, it's obvious the EU is going to turn Russia in the poorest blown up 3rd world nation in history. Obviously you never thought about this rather obvious scenario. Them EU countries really do not need to increase their budgets at all to push over little Russia. How about you first go have a look how much EU countries spend in total on the military vs Russia, before you reply something dumb again.
Higher in financial cost? Perhaps, but lower in the cost of resistance to Putin's Russia. If European security is really that important, it's an investment that Germany should make(nay, that all of Europe). Not only that, but I'd go a step further: It should be a requirement of all European countries moving forward. You say we shouldn't have our soldiers be mercenaries, but isn't that what they are? Isn't that our INTL agreement over the last 100 years, resulting in tragedies like the Budapest Memoradum? Currently, Europe need only raise a hand and we are there with our "European allies". This results in them not only picking up the fight(or diplomatic solutions) but it invariably brings us into the heat of the conflict, as the Poland-US situation demonstrated. So you see, Mainstream Washington brought us into the peril of the conflict,, and our willingness to subvert to Europe is another cause of the conflict. Our subversion is not an admirable nor nationalistic trait for US Victory. It just means we're a cuck.
Germany viewed this strictly as a business deal with Russia that would lower any potential threat Russia may impose. Trump was thinking how much of this deal I can get my hands on. It would have been a lot higher for Germany to pay for Natural Gas, not to meantion a logistical nightmare, to obtain that natural gas and be beholden to Trump. Quite simply, Germany, during that time didn't trust Trump whatsoever. The way Trump thinks, he was thinking of himself and how he could make money off a deal with Germany through ExxonMobile while disguising it as a natinoal security concern. His method of achieving this is what I disagree with, not the reason behind it.
Well, Germany has cancelled that pipeline and they're upping their military. They're absolutely screwed in terms of energy needs currently though.
Turns out the devil they knew(Russia) was worse than the devil they didn't know(Trump/US), wouldn't you say? It is a national security concern for the Germans and all of Europe. As far as the logistical issues, that could surely be resolved in some way.
The import from Russia is massive. Yet they are planning to slash what they need by 75% this year. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/eu-...imports-by-two-thirds-before-next-winter.html I wouldn't call that "absolutely screwed" as if there is no way out. There is just a no way out by tomorrow, but it will come rather relatively really really fast.
The unfortunate reality is Germany will always be dependent on others because they don't have the necessary resources on their own. That hasn't changed, regardless of where those resources are coming from, east or west. Trump simply pointed out it wasn't in Germany's best interests to depend on the Russians. Looks like he was right, no?
The myopia of government ideologues just can't allow facts to interfere with their fantasy. We've seen this before, every time a republican starts looking at government as the problem that it really is.
Sure, except that he said Germany gets 60-70% of their energy needs from Russia NG, when the actual number is 7%. So, yea, very typical Trump comments, - totally detached from reality. Too late for what? You don't know how it works. No one pays anything to NATO. Each member simply invests in their own militaries. The only exception was Germany subsidizing to house US troops in Germany back when we had 300 000 of them there. No, they did not shut them all down. They turned off 3 plants, which they can turn back on )and probably will). Who will ever trust Russia again? I don't know.