Trump takes on NATO

US President Donald Trump has shocked NATO allies by asking them to commit 4% of their annual output to military spending double the current target. The NATO meeting also saw Trump single out Germany for criticism over its defence spending and its pipeline deal with Russia. Previous US presidents have urged Europe to take more responsibility for their defence but none as bluntly as Trump who is increasingly getting on Europe nerves.

Why is Trump so critical of NATO?

Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the trans-Atlantic (US-European) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance since his presidential campaign, which has contributed to a strained relationship in recent months.

The US president called the alliance “not fair to the US taxpayer” in a recent Twitter post, complaining about the financial burden America carries, further cementing his fierce rebukes of other members who he claims do not pay enough for their defence. “NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS,” Trump tweeted. “Very Unfair!” This, combined with Trump's isolation at the recent G7 summit thanks to the threat on US tariffs on EU goods, will mean a somewhat difficult trip for the president.

The security alliance was formed with Canada and several European nations in 1949 and now contains 29 states. It serves as a safeguard for its allied nations provided by its central purpose highlighted in Article 5 that an attack on one ally is an attack against all – and that every ally provides defence no matter what. But Trump has previously tried to use that clause as a way to get other nations to increase their defence spending.

In May last year, Trump stunned top national security aides when he did not explicitly commit to Article 5 in a speech in Brussels, though he later affirmed his commitment in a press conference the following month. Prior to that, Trump notably referred to NATO as “obsolete,” but later took back those comments. Trump attributed his new stance to his belief the alliance had improved its efforts to “fight terrorism.” He has also previously suggested he would not help allies via Article 5, if they did not spend enough on defence.

The two-day summit in Brussels, from 11 to 12 July will cover a number of issues. But beyond the agenda, Trump will have to deal with a number of allies annoyed at US protectionism - such as the tariffs, which will hit trade with a number of nations. Trump also has the bad habit of singling out allies in public if he has an issue in mind - which will not help.

The main item on the agenda will be defence spending and burden sharing. Trump has mainly assailed allies for not spending more on defence, insisting they should make the two percent target set forth by the alliance in 2014. The agreement stated that ally nations spending less than the NATO guideline of two percent of their GDP should “aim to move towards the two percent guideline within a decade…”

Trump has called the two percent guideline a “bare minimum.” Leaders will also take decisions to step up NATO’s role in the fight against terrorism. Allies will agree more support for key partners in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iraq, Tunisia and Jordan. To strengthen deterrence and defence, particularly given the low state of relations with Russia, leaders are expected to adopt a "readiness Initiative". “This is a commitment to have by 2020: 30 mechanized battalions; 30 air squadrons; and 30 combat vessels, ready to use within 30 days or less,” a pre-summit release says. The nations will also discuss Afghanistan, as well as the issue of membership for Macedonia.

According to NATO estimations in March, the US spent more on defence than its allies reaching 3.57 percent spending of GDP in 2017. Three other nations made the 2 per cent target that year; Greece, UK, and Estonia all hit the benchmark with Poland reaching 1.99 percent. “We expect eight allies to spend at least two percent of GDP on defence this year, compared to just three allies in 2014,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, ahead of the summit. He noted that allies are also investing billions in new equipment and stepping up their contributions to missions and operations. “We estimate that European allies and Canada will add an extra $266 billion to defence between now and 2024,” he said.

Last month, Trump sent letters to a number of leaders of NATO countries addressing their respective countries underspending on defence and warning them about "growing frustrations" in the US. But Trump is making assumptions about direct and indirect - such as defence spending - costs for countries in NATO. Indirect costs, the US currently pays about 22 percent of NATO’s “principal budgets” that are funded by all alliance members based on a cost-sharing formula that factors in the gross national income of each country.

“Direct contributions are made to financial requirements of the Alliance that serve the interests of all 29 members — and are not the responsibility of any single member — such as NATO-wide air defence or command and control systems,” the alliance says. “Costs are borne collectively, often using the principle of common funding.” Trump, however, is mainly referring to indirect spending on defence budgets. He has claimed the US is paying "90 percent" of NATO costs, but that figure is too high.

Altogether, the 29 alliance members spent an estimated $917 billion on defence in 2017, and the US portion was about $618 billion.

What did Trump say about military spending?

Donald Trump left the opening day of the NATO summit in Brussels in disarray on July 11 after making a surprise demand for members to raise their defence spending to 4% of GDP and clashing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over a proposed pipeline deal with Russia.

Trump left the assembled presidents and prime ministers struggling, unsure whether he was serious about the 4% target, double the existing NATO target of 2%, which itself many do not meet, or whether it was just a ploy. After making the announcement, Trump simply walked out.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, confirmed the 4% figure. “During the president’s remarks today at the NATO summit he suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of 2% of their GDP on defence spending but that they increase it to 4%,” she said. Sanders added: “President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and, at a very minimum, meet their already stated obligations.” The chaotic first day dismayed NATO officials and will please Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has long pursued a strategy of creating division in NATO. Trump is due to meet Putin in Helsinki on July 16.

NATO leaders are pressing Trump to raise a series of concerns with the Russian leader. Trump’s demand over defence spending came during a meeting at which leaders discussed “burden-sharing”. The US president’s attention span is notoriously short: like a disinterested backbench student in a history class, he tweeted during the crucial session about soya beans and American farmers.

According to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, Trump raised the issue of the increase in defence spending and “he just left after he announced that”. Sanders insisted that Trump had raised the issue at last year’s NATO summit. However, officials from other states said it had come as a surprise. At the closed session – with no journalists present – Trump also called out the five members that have met the existing 2% defence spending target and 23 that have not. According to newly published NATO figures, countries that meet or exceed that 2% target is: the US on 3.6%, Greece on 2.2%, Estonia 2.14%, the UK 2.10%, and Poland on 2%. France spends 1.8% and Germany 1.2%.

How will the future play out?

If his body is any indicator, the NATO people will not have a great time ahead. Trump, thankfully, didn't shove anyone this time, but his body language during NATO events on July 11 suggested his relationships with key U.S. allies aren't exactly buddy-buddy.

Trump started the day with a tense breakfast meeting with Jens Stoltenberg in which he lectured the NATO leader about member defence spending and complained about a German pipeline deal with Russia. Arms crossed over his chest, Trump gestured at Stoltenberg and repeatedly interrupted the secretary-general as he argued his case. Trump's aides seated around the table, including chief of staff John Kelly and the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, looked visibly uncomfortable at points.

Their subsequent encounters at NATO headquarters were formal and less strained as they twice shook hands and chatted in front of journalists. But those moments were more robotic than Stoltenberg's chattier introductions with other leaders, many of whom Stoltenberg was seeing for the first time that day after he had spent part of the morning hosting Trump.

World leader summits are largely about optics and presenting a united front to the rest of the world. But Trump barreled into his second NATO summit, as he did his first, with a litany of public complaints about alliance members' "delinquent" defence spending, as well as a German-Russian gas pipeline deal. Showing unity seemed an afterthought for the "America First" president. And it showed. During moments that were visible to the press, Trump often separated himself from most of his counterparts, particularly those with whom he has had public disagreements, such as British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canada's Justin Trudeau.

When the leaders strolled out of the gleaming NATO building in Brussels for the traditional family photo in the courtyard, Trump lingered behind and mostly spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. On the dais, he and Theresa May chatted as they stood together, but Trump kept his back toward other leaders, including Merkel.

After the group moved inside for talks, Trump again hung back as other heads of state glad-handed around the room. He stayed close to members of his delegation, including Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, before eventually engaging in a brief round of backslapping with others, including again May, before taking his seat.

When he met Merkel, Trump told reporters: "We have a very, very good relationship with the chancellor." The comment illustrated how Trump often seeks to avoid conflict with people when he is face to face with them versus the often-harsher rhetoric he uses when he's talking behind their back. Merkel was not present at Trump's breakfast with Stoltenberg. When it was her turn to address reporters in the room for the meeting with Trump, Merkel made no similar declaration about her relationship with Trump. The two barely looked at each other during the few minutes’ journalists were allowed in the room.

That was in stark contrast to Trump's subsequent meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. The Frenchman is one of Trump's closest friends on the world stage despite their many areas of disagreement, including Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord, and to impose tariffs on France and other European countries. Trump and Macron bantered easily during their joint photo op, with Trump calling it "an honor to be with a friend of mine." The two also chatted each other up as Macron walked Trump out of the NATO building at the end of the day.

By evening, arriving at a dinner hosted by the Belgian government at the Art and History Museum at the Cinquantenaire, Trump appeared to be in a more social mood. The president, who doesn't drink alcohol, huddled during the cocktail reception with Stoltenberg for several minutes, before being joined by Merkel for an animated discussion. As Trump spoke again with Erdogan, his wife, Melania, was greeted warmly by Trudeau.

At last year's NATO summit, tongues wagged after Trump appeared to shove Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro to get to the front of the group as leaders entered the alliance's new headquarters building. Markovic later characterized the incident as "a completely harmless event."

But harm is what NATO must be collectively planning for now. Hint: It’s not coming from Russia.

Where do we see pipeline politics at play?

Donald Trump may have used typically emotive – if premeditated – language from the outset at the NATO summit in Brussels to lambast Germany for its willingness to build a gas pipeline, but the US president’s view that this will make Europe particularly dependent on Russian gas is widely shared by European politicians, think tanks and energy specialists, including some in Berlin. No country is angrier about the pipeline than Ukraine, an ally Trump is supposedly poised to abandon when he meets the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki on July 16.

Ukraine stands to lose billions of much-needed dollars if Russia can transfer its gas transmissions to Europe across the Baltic Sea, away from a pipeline running across Ukrainian territory. This week the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, said: “This is not a commercial project – it is not economical or profitable – it is absolutely a political project. There is no point, from the economic point of view, creating this project. This is absolutely a geopolitical project.”

By contrast, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has tried to maintain that the construction of Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a common sense economic project, with no political consequence. For many, her refusal to see the geopolitical implications of making Europe so dependent on Russian energy shows the reach that Gazprom, the majority shareholder in the project, has into Germany. The presence of the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder on its board and his friendship with Putin seems only to symbolize the triumph of Russian interests.

The aim of a second double-pipeline – which was once scheduled for completion by the end of 2019, but is now likely to be delayed – is to act as a decades-long substitute for the decreasing production of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Britain. For Merkel, it is also politically essential to get Germany out of nuclear energy by 2022, but still reduce her country’s carbon emissions.

Sweden, Denmark, and Finland have expressed ecological reservations about a second natural gas pipeline at the bottom of the Baltic. The Danish parliament has empowered its government to veto the pipeline on security or environmental grounds and, separately, the European Commission has objected on the basis that the project will undermine its plans for an energy union, including a greater diversity of supply.

The UK has also been objecting, albeit less stridently. A letter sent by the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson to the all-party group of MPs on Poland two months ago echoed many of the objections voiced by the commission. The Foreign Office, in the eyes of some MPs, has not been keen to advertise its differences with Berlin in the middle of the Brexit negotiations. Poking Merkel over Nord Stream 2 risks alienating her at a sensitive moment.

One of the curiosities of the controversy is that attitudes to the pipeline are thought to be a litmus test of how someone perceives Russia. Trump, famously well-disposed to Putin, is, not for the first time, the exception that proves the rule. By opposing the pipeline, perhaps for an amalgam of US commercial and security reasons, he seems to set himself against Putin’s largest geo-economics project. But it is possible that Trump’s target is not Moscow, but Berlin and the Russian president is merely the victim of a wider trial of strength between the two great western economies.

There are also questions over whether Germany needs Nord Stream 2. The pipeline will deliver at least 55bn cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Russia to Germany annually, just like the first-double pipeline, representing 110 bcm together. At present, German natural gas consumption amounts to about 80 bcm a year, of which just over a third is covered by Russia. Many energy experts say efficiency measures will result in reduced demand, leaving a gas surplus.

The biggest fear is that the pipeline allows Russia a boot on the throat of Europe. It had not been afraid to cut off supplies faced by price disputes with Ukraine. Nord Stream’s defenders, however, see the US protests purely through the prism of US commercial self-interest. Trump’s outburst is regarded simply as an effort to promote the sales of American liquefied national gas.

The question now is whether the US Congress would follow through in its threat to sanction European companies involved in the pipeline. The US Treasury has shown through secondary sanctions on firms trading with Iran that it possesses an overwhelming economic power to force EU firms to divest from commercially profitable projects.

The question is whether it is in the US’s self-interest to wield its power over its supposed allies and partners quite so nakedly. The answer will depend on Trump’s mood in the morning he tweets next about it.

Who will gain from all this chaos?

Putin, of course.

The big takeaway of the so far bad-tempered NATO summit is that President Donald Trump has little time for the alliance and a thin appreciation of the track record and historic purpose of an organization that has kept the peace and preserved Western democracy since World War II. He has given no sign he sees the alliance as other US presidents did, as a way of projecting American power, fortifying democracy, containing German expansionism and holding Russia at bay on a continent where twice last century, thousands of American boys went to die. Instead, he appears to view it more as a contracting service, in which US allies should be paying far more in cash for the privilege of being America's friend. If he sees any flow-back benefit to membership for the United States, the President rarely mentions it.

"I felt the President treated the NATO allies almost with contempt," former US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns told CNN's Erin Burnett on July 11 after a day in which Trump berated US partners over defence spending and singled out Germany for particular scorn. "It is important that we not normalize this. He is the first American president since Harry Truman ... to not believe that NATO is central to American national security interests."

With such attacks, Trump also often appears to be doing Russian President Vladimir Putin's work for him, by opening divisions in the transatlantic alliance and berating NATO partners. It's a move even more curious ahead of Trump's Helsinki summit scheduled for Monday with his Russian counterpart.

The question with which NATO leaders must wrestle as the summit ends is whether Trump's clear and public doubts about the alliance's purpose matter. This is not the first time the alliance's purpose has been questioned. After the Cold War, NATO was looking for a mission, and it found one in the Balkans and in Afghanistan until Russia's resurgent threat underlined the need for a transatlantic security alliance. Yet Trump is the most important leader in NATO, so putting his behavior down as just the rhetoric of an arbitrary disrupter isn't giving him his due. He is the person who would ultimately have to take the decision to react if there were any incursion by Russia into NATO territory.

Would he find it in America's interests to stand up to a provocation by Moscow, especially if it is against a NATO member he considers has not been paying its way? Any ambivalence about a NATO country's fate is critical since the entire credibility of the grouping rests on the certainty that an attack on one is an attack on all. How Trump would react if pushed in that capacity is unknown. But for now, he's made his feelings about the current state of the organization and the world's balance of power abundantly clear.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said the criticism of Germany was "disgraceful" and "destructive." In a joint statement, top congressional Democrats Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Nancy Pelosi of California said it was "an "embarrassment." "His behavior this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the President is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies," they wrote.