U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday took aim at President Emmanuel Macron over the French leader’s recent criticism of NATO, and criticized the other members of the military alliance for being too slow to beef up their defense budgets as prime ministers and presidents of the 29-member alliance converged on London to mark NATO’s 70th birthday.
What happened
Trump told reporters Macron’s comments were “very, very nasty” when he lamented the “brain death” of the organization due in large part to a lack of U.S. leadership.
“I think that’s insulting to a lot of different forces,” Trump said. “You just can’t go around making statements like that about NATO. It’s very disrespectful.”
How we got here
In a Nov. 7 interview, Macron said the NATO alliance was suffering "brain death" owing to the lack of strategic cooperation among members.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Macron on Friday, just days before the summit, saying the French leader himself should be checked for "brain death."
Credit: Alex Wong
Credit: Alex Wong
"I am talking to France's President Emmanuel Macron, and I will also say this at NATO. First of all, have your own brain death checked. These statements are suitable only to people like you who are in a state of brain death," Erdogan said in a televised speech.
Macron was angered when Trump unilaterally pulled troops out of northern Syria last month, a move that Turkey saw as a green light for an invasion. The European Union is mired in a political crisis sparked by its inability to manage Syrian refugee arrivals and fears that more people might flee.
»RELATED: Turkish military operation launched in northern Syria, Erdogan says
Macron insisted ahead of the meeting that NATO focus on important strategic questions such as who its enemies really are, how to improve ties with Russia and what to do with an unpredictable ally such as Turkey.
Ankara raised the ire of its allies by invading northern Syria, and for buying Russian air defense systems with powerful computers aboard that suck up data and would compromise the military equipment of allies if they were stationed nearby.
Erdogan had earlier suggested that Turkey might not back Poland and NATO’s Baltic allies — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — should they require defense unless the allies support Turkish concerns about Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara sees as terrorists.
That threat raises new questions about NATO’s commitment to its collective defense clause — Article 5 — under which all allies vow to come to the aid of a member under attack. The clause has only ever been activated once, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
U.S.-France tensions
Relations between the U.S. and France are particularly strained this week after the U.S. trade representative proposed introducing tariffs on $2.4 billion in goods Monday in retaliation for a French tax on global tech giants including Google, Amazon and Facebook.
"I'm not in love with those companies, but they're our companies," Trump said Tuesday in London ahead of his meeting with Macron. The two were due to meet later on the sidelines of the summit.
France is threatening a "strong European riposte" if the Trump administration follows through on a proposal to hit French cheese, champagne, handbags and other products with tariffs — of up to 100%.
Stance on military aid
Discussing military funding, Trump insisted that “a lot of countries haven’t paid.”
After Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, NATO countries halted their post-Cold War spending cuts and began increasing spending.
They pledged to “move toward” spending 2% of GDP on their national defense budgets by 2024.
“You could make the case that they’ve been delinquent for 25-30 years,” Trump said. He added the figure of 2% “is a very low number, it really should be 4.”
What’s at stake
The spats between leaders threaten to expose a lack of unity that could undermine the military organization’s credibility. The very public arguments also bode ill for a summit hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is deep into an electoral campaign and desperately wants to smooth things over.
Credit: Evan Vucci
Credit: Evan Vucci
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, given the unenviable task of trying to hold NATO together as its leaders take pot shots at each other, said “we’re doing more together, North America and Europe, than we have done in many decades.”
But even he conceded that “we should never question the unity and the political willingness to stand together and to defend each other. The whole purpose of NATO is to preserve peace. It’s to prevent conflict by sending a clear message to any potential adversary that if one ally is attacked it will trigger a response from the whole alliance.”
What’s next
The two-day summit kicks off late Tuesday with receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. One short working session will be held at a golf resort in outer London on Wednesday. The aim is to issue a joint declaration — if the summit can survive the friendly fire.
Trump is due to hold separate talks with Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on the sidelines. Johnson is also set to host talks on Syria with Macron, Merkel and Erdogan later Tuesday.
— This report was compiled by ArLuther Lee / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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