U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday intensified his accusations that NATO allies were not spending enough on defense and warned of more attacks like this week’s Manchester bombing unless the alliance did more to stop militants.
Trump directly scolds NATO allies, says they owe ‘massive’ sums
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-europe-idUSKBN18K34D
In unexpectedly abrupt remarks as NATO leaders stood alongside him, Trump said certain member countries owed “massive amounts of money” to the United States and NATO — even though allied contributions are voluntary, with multiple budgets.
His scripted comments contrasted with NATO’s choreographed efforts to play up the West’s unity by inviting Trump to unveil a memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the new NATO headquarters building in Brussels.
Terrorism must be stopped in its tracks, or the horror you saw in Manchester and so many other places will continue forever,” Trump said, referring to Monday’s suicide bombing in the English city that killed 22 people, including children.
“These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct … in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share,” Trump said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg defended Trump, saying that although he was “blunt” he had “a very plain and clear message on the expectations” of allies.
But one senior diplomat said Trump, who left the leaders’ dinner before it ended to fly to Italy for Friday’s Group of Seven summit, said the remarks did not go down well at all.
This was not the right place or time,” the diplomat said of the very public harangue. “We are left with nothing else but trying to put a brave face on it.”
In another unexpected twist, Trump called on NATO, an organization founded on collective defense against the Soviet threat, to include limiting immigration in its tasks.
And Trump did say that the United States “will never forsake the friends who stood by our side” but NATO leaders had hoped he would more explicitly support the mutual defense rules of a military alliance’s he called “obsolete” during his campaign.
Instead, he returned to a grievance about Europe’s drop in defense spending since the end of the Cold War and failed to publicly commit to NATO’s founding Article V rule which stipulates that an attack on one ally is an attack against all.
“Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying for their defense,” Trump said, standing by a piece of the wreckage of the Twin Towers. “This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States, and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years,” Trump said as the other leaders watched.
Nicholas Burns, a former long-time diplomat and ambassador to NATO from 2001-2005, now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said every U.S. president since Harry Truman had pledged support for Article V and that the United States would defend Europe.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was “100 percent” committed to collective defense. “We are not playing cutesie with this. He is fully committed,” Spicer said.
“BARE MINIMUM” - Praise was always going to be in short supply after Trump’s sharp election campaign criticism of the alliance, which he blamed for not doing more to combat terrorism.
Last year, Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe if they did not spend enough on defense, comments that were particularly unnerving for the ex-Soviet Baltic states on Russia’s border which fear Moscow might try a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Although he has since softened his tone in phone calls and meetings with Western leaders, Trump’s sharp words on Thursday recalled his awkward meeting with Angela Merkel in March, when he pressed the German chancellor for Germany to meet NATO’s military spending target.
NATO diplomats planned to placate Trump with a pledge on Thursday to agree to national plans by the end of this year showing how NATO allies will meet a promise to spend 2 percent of economic output every year on defense by 2024.
But Trump increased the pressure, calling that agreement made at a summit in Wales in 2014 “the bare minimum”. “Even 2 percent of GDP is insufficient … 2 percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats,” Trump said.
He also made his presence felt at his first NATO summit, literally, pushing his way past Montenegro’s prime minister, Dusko Markovic, whose country joins the organization next month, in footage that went viral.
Spicer said he had not seen the video but assumed the U.S. president was moving to his designated spot.
NATO nonetheless strived to impress Trump with allied jets flying overhead and a walk through the new glass headquarters, which replaces a 1960s prefab structure.
Trump, a real estate magnate, called the building “beautiful” and joked that he did not dare ask how much it cost.
Leaders from the world’s major industrialized nations began talks on Friday at a G7 summit in Sicily which is expected to expose deep divisions with U.S. President Donald Trump over trade and climate change.
Trump and other leaders clash on trade, climate at G7
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit-idUSKBN18L2ZU
The two-day summit, at a cliff-top hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, began a day after Trump blasted NATO allies for spending too little on defense and described Germany’s trade surplus as “very bad” in a meeting with EU officials in Brussels.
After receiving warm receptions in Saudi Arabia and Israel, Trump’s confrontational stance with long-standing partners in Europe cast a cloud over the meeting in Taormina, where leaders are due to discuss terrorism, Syria, North Korea and the global economy.
“No doubt, this will be the most challenging G7 summit in years,” Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said before the meeting.
White House economic adviser Gary Cohn predicted “robust” discussions on trade and climate.
Trump was elected in November after a campaign in which he rejected many of the tenets that the Group of Seven has stood for, including free trade, multilateralism and the liberal democratic values.
European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuel Macron, had hoped to use the summit to convince Trump to soften some of his stances.
But diplomats conceded as the talks began that the United States was unlikely to budge, meaning the final communique could be watered down significantly compared to the one the G7 unveiled at its last summit in Japan.
TRADE AND CLIMATE - The summit kicked off with a ceremony at an ancient Greek theater overlooking the sea, where war ships patrolled the sparkling blue waters. Nine fighter jets soared into the sky above Taormina, leaving a trail of smoke in the red-white-green colors of the Italian flag.
The leaders then adjourned to the San Domenico Palace, a one-time Dominican monastery that is now a luxury 5-star hotel. During World War Two, it housed Nazi air force chiefs.
From L-R, European Council President Donald Tusk, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pose for a family photo during the G7 Summit in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, May 26, 2017.
Italy chose to stage the summit in Sicily to draw attention to Africa, which is 140 miles (225 km) from the island at its closest point across the Mediterranean.
But trade and climate, to be discussed on Friday afternoon, are the most contentious issues.
Trump, who dismissed human-made global warming as a “hoax” during his election campaign, is threatening to pull the United States out of a 2015 climate deal clinched in Paris in 2015. Fellow G7 leaders are trying to convince him to stay in. Cohn and other administration officials have said Trump will wait until after the summit to decide.
“This is the first real opportunity that the international community has to force the American administration to begin to show its hand, particularly on environment policy,” said Tristen Naylor, a lecturer on development at the University of Oxford and deputy director of the G20 Research Group.
On Thursday in Brussels, with NATO leaders standing alongside him, Trump accused members of the military alliance of owing “massive amounts of money” to the United States and NATO – even though allied contributions are voluntary.
The remarks went down badly with European leaders, who had hoped Trump would use the opportunity to confirm his commitment to Article 5, the core NATO principle that an attack on one member is viewed as an attack on all.
“When an American president cannot commit clearly to Article 5 at a time when everyone is expecting him to do this then there is the risk that Moscow interprets this as meaning it is no longer valid,” said Jan Techau of the American Academy in Berlin.
“VERY BAD” - In a private meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Trump also denounced the German trade surplus as “very bad” and complained about the large number of German cars being sold in the United States, officials said.
Juncker tried to play down the comments ahead of the summit. But they underscored ongoing policy divisions between Trump and his partners four months after he took office.
Trump is attending his first major international summit but is not the only G7 newcomer. Macron, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and British Prime Minister Theresa May will also be attending the elite club for the first time.
May is expected to leave a day early, following Monday’s suicide bombing at a concert in northern England that killed 22 people carried out by a suspected Islamist militant of Libyan descent who grew up in Britain.
G7 leaders were expected to issue a separate statement on terrorism on Friday, before issuing their formal communique on Saturday. Italian officials have suggested the final communique will be shorter than 10 pages. At the last G7 summit in Japan it totaled 32 pages.
One country that will not be present is Russia. It was expelled from the group in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Trump called for improved ties with Moscow during his election campaign.
But accusations from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia intervened in the U.S. election to help Trump, and investigations into his campaign’s contacts with Russian officials, have hung over his four-month-old presidency and prevented him from getting too close to Moscow.
Priceless! Don't touch the supreme - GOD.
Pope Francis SLAPS Donald Trump's Hand For Touching Him (VIDEO) Angry Pope Slaps Trump's Hand Away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHW79Y-VNJo (1:19 min.)
Blake Farenthold (R-TX) told CNN’s John Berman that the Russian hacking of the election was actually an “inside job.”
GOP representative says the DNC hack was an inside job. The CNN reaction is priceless!
http://investmentwatchblog.com/gop-representative-says-the-dnc-hack-was-an-inside-job-the-cnn-reaction-is-priceless/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipekAngf0k (6:20 min.)
“My fear is our constant focusing on the Russians is deflecting away for some other things that we need to be investigating in,” Farenthold said. “There’s still some question as to whether the intrusion of the DNC server was an inside job or whether or it was the Russians.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Berman repeated, seemingly shocked. “The ‘inside job?’ What are you referring to here because I hope it’s not this information that Fox News just refused to be reporting.”
Farenthold then went on to create a conspiracy theory claiming that the DNC contracted their own cybersecurity firm to dive through their data breach and it could have been faked.
“Congressman, do you think it’s responsible to bring up things, in your words, that ‘are swirling on the internet’ and give it justification as if there’s a there-there when we know nothing on that yet?” Berman asked.
