We took stock of which conflicts Trump heated up and which he cooled off during yet another reliably unpredictable gathering of NATO leaders
President Donald Trump is in his element when he abandons diplomatic protocol and enters fighting mode. And often, those fights are with America’s historic allies.
But the comments have to be graded on the Trump bell curve. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a peer a public dressing down, it’s a carefully planned hit job. That’s not necessarily true with Trump. When Trump criticizes a leader, it is often a means to boost himself. For example, when he chided former British leader Theresa May over her failure to secure Brexit, it was a vehicle to note that the problem was that she hadn’t followed Trump’s advice.
Another surprise was Trump’s cordial press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, where the two leaders praised the other’s leadership of the military alliance. Stoltenberg gave Trump considerable credit for the defense spending increases among NATO allies in recent years, and Trump quickly returned the compliments.
During the NATO conference, Trump brought up the issue with a number of world leaders, including Trudeau and Merkel. The president did give a positive shout-out to Italy for apparently staying away from Huawei, saying, “they look like they're not going to go forward with that.
At the NATO gathering, Trump tussled with Macron over the issue, lashing out over a tax France recently levied on American tech companies that operate in the country. In response, the Trump administration on Monday threatened to hit luxury French items with 100 percent tariffs, threatening a truce the two countries had reached in August.
On spending, Trump spent his time at the NATO gathering this week chiding Germany and Canada for their lagging investment levels, while hosting a lunch for the countries that have hit a hit a voluntary target of spending 2 percent of their GDP on military expenses.
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