{"id":369075,"date":"2018-07-12T10:51:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T09:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trumps-criticism-of-nato-ignores-the-real-questions-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-07-12T10:51:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T09:51:03","slug":"trumps-criticism-of-nato-ignores-the-real-questions-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trumps-criticism-of-nato-ignores-the-real-questions-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Criticism of NATO Ignores the Real Questions \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump\u2019s bluster at the NATO summit only has to do with money, not whether the alliance serves any genuine security purpose, says Jonathan Marshall.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jonathan Marshall
<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>Special to Consortium News<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

He gave a public tongue-lashing to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, saying it was unfair for the U.S. to pay the most for protecting Europe while Germany agreed to a new natural gas pipeline to import natural gas from Russia. \u201cGermany, as far as I\u2019m concerned, is captive to Russia,\u201d Trump said. \u201cGermany is totally controlled by Russia.\u201d But Germany turned to Russia after the Trump administration threatened sanctions on Europeans who buy Iranian natural gas. The U.S. also wants to sell more expensive natural gas to Germany.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded bluntly to Trump. \u201cI\u2019ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union,\u201d she told reporters, \u201cand I\u2019m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions and that\u2019s very good.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Trump set the stage for his trademark political brawl at a recent rally in North Dakota, where he\u00a0<\/span><\/span>declared<\/span><\/span><\/a>, \u201cSometimes our worst enemies are our so-called friends or allies, right?\u201d On the same Western swing, he <\/span><\/span>he told supporters<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>in Montana that Europe \u201ckills us with NATO.\u201d As he left the White House for Europe, the President further trolled America\u2019s traditional allies,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>noting<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that between NATO, the UK, and Putin\u2014the three subjects of his visit\u2014\u201cPutin may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Though he has for decades complained<\/a> that other countries have been taking advantage of the U.S., the key to understanding Trump\u2019s performance toward NATO may be recognizing that it is just that, a…<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s bluster at the NATO summit only has to do with money, not whether the alliance serves any genuine security purpose, says Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan MarshallSpecial to Consortium News The usual NATO summit begins and ends with U.S. and European leaders issuing platitudes about the unbreakable bonds between Western democracies. The two-day summit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-369075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}