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| Europe | |
| Germany = deadbeats? | |
| 2019-03-21 | |
| [NYTimes] Germany, which had already announced that it will fall significantly short of NATO’s defense spending goals, annoying the United States, risks provoking Washington further by failing to reach even its own slimmed-down target. Now, projected spending levels are expected to fall below even that lower path in a three-year budget plan due to be announced on Wednesday, portending another confrontation with Washington. Even in Europe, some diplomats in neighboring countries privately complain that Germany’s failure to meet its commitments is putting not just its own relationship with Washington on the line, but that of the whole Continent. “NATO members clearly pledged to move toward, not away, from 2 percent by 2024,” Richard Grenell, the American ambassador to Germany, told reporters on Monday after budget numbers were first floated. “That the German government would even be considering reducing its already unacceptable commitments to military readiness is a worrisome signal to Germany’s 28 NATO allies.” Mr. Grenell has demanded that Berlin scrap Nord Stream 2, a planned gas pipeline from Russia, or risk possible sanctions for the companies involved; stop German companies from doing business in Iran, or risk restrictions on doing business in the United States; and ban a Chinese company from building a new communications network, or risk losing access to some intelligence sharing. The threats have not gone down well in Berlin, with one German politician this week even demanding Mr. Grenell’s immediate expulsion for interfering in Germany’s sovereign affairs, although that is unlikely to happen. “Any U.S. diplomat who acts like a high commissioner of an occupying power must learn that our tolerance also knows its limits,” said Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy chairman of the opposition Free Democrats.
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| Posted by:3dc |
| #2 There is a weird instinct in humanity to forgive those that threaten you and to dislike those that you feel indebted to. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2019-03-21 14:26 |
| #1 I love it. The Germans are flat out refusing to contribute to their own defense. They are ungrateful freeloaders. Cut them loose. USA out of NATO. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-03-21 13:57 |