Angela Merkel's White House Visit Was Way More Awkward Than We Knew
Just when you thought German chancellor Angela Merkel's visit couldn't have been any worse, it has been recently reported that President Donald Trump actually printed out an invoice for $374 billion-money Trump believes Germany owes to NATO, with interest-and handed it to Merkel during their closed doors meeting, The Sunday Times reported.
This is embarrassing for so many reasons. First, it's just plain rude to invite a guest into your home and then hand them a bill. Emily Post must have written a chapter on this somewhere.
Furthermore, this is simply not how NATO defense funding works.
According to CNN, NATO sets a target for how much countries should spend on their own defense forces, the theory being that if all NATO countries have a strong defense, it will benefit all members. Currently the target for spending is 2% of a country's gross domestic product. Germany currently spends 1.2% of GDP on defense while the United States spends 3.61%. Only the U.S., Britain, Estonia, Poland, and Greece actually exceed 2% GDP defense spending.
But 2% is merely a guideline, and the money does not go to NATO as Trump seems to believe. It just means that Germany is spending 0.8% less of its GDP on its own defense, so even if Germany technically "owes" $374 billion in defense spending, it owes those funds to Germany's armed forces, not NATO. Trump basically handed Merkel a bill stating that she owes herself money.
"The president has a very unorthodox view on NATO defense spending," a source told the Times. "The alliance is not a club with a membership fee. The commitments relate to countries' investment in their defense budgets."
Unorthodox is one way to put it. Crazy is another. It's going to be a long four years, folks.
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