\n
While it is clear Ms. Merkel makes Mr. Trump uncomfortable, she hesitates to speak for Europe \u2014 especially now that her own political position in Germany is weaker and subject to challenge, both from the right and from her coalition partners on the left, the Social Democrats.<\/p>\n
They have called the idea of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense \u2014 which Mr. Trump has not only insisted on but now says he wants to double \u2014 ludicrous and arbitrary.<\/p>\n
That view is shared by many Germans, which led Ms. Merkel to record a video over the weekend explaining why she believed Germany must spend more on defense, as pledged. But the more Mr. Trump attacks Germany, the less its people feel like appeasing him on military spending or with trade concessions.<\/p>\n
While President Emmanuel Macron of France has tried to curry favor with Mr. Trump, playing the role of the devoted mentee, Ms. Merkel has kept her distance. Neither approach has worked with Mr. Trump. And when he becomes aggressive or mocking, as he did in private sessions during the Group of 7 summit meeting last month in Canada, Ms. Merkel simply does not react, perhaps to avoid setting him off further.<\/p>\n
By charging that Germany is in thrall to Moscow, through a new gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2, Mr. Trump appeared to be trying to deflect criticism that he is too accommodating toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, suggested Derek Chollet, a former assistant secretary of defense who is now with the German Marshall Fund in Washington.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are scheduled to meet on Monday in Helsinki, Finland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is like throwing a match on kindling, since Germany was anticipating something like this after the Group of 7\u201d meeting in Canada, Mr. Chollet said. \u201cTrump went out of his way in his first meeting to send this unprovoked attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump and Ms. Merkel talked later Wednesday in a bilateral meeting that lasted an hour, and appeared to go out of their way to be cordial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\u201cWe have a very, very good relationship with the chancellor, we have a tremendous relationship with Germany,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019re having a great meeting. We\u2019re discussing military expenditure, we\u2019re talking about trade.\u201d Noting Germany\u2019s \u201ctremendous success,\u201d Mr. Trump added, \u201cI believe that our trade will increase and lots of other things will increase, but we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if the pipeline issue had come up, Mr. Trump said that it had. For her part, Ms. Merkel was nonconfrontational. \u201cI am pleased to have this opportunity to be here for this exchange of views,\u201d she said, which extended to economics, migration and \u201cthe future of our trade relations.\u201d<\/p>\n
She concluded: \u201cWe are partners, we are good partners, and wish to continue to cooperate in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump had been advertising his intention to read the Riot Act to NATO allies about military spending, calling Americans \u201cthe schmucks that are paying for the whole thing\u201d and vowing last week: \u201cI\u2019m going to tell NATO \u2014 you got to start paying your bills. The United States is not going to take care of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
But his animus toward Germany, which spends about 1.24 percent of its G.D.P. on defense and has a large trade surplus with the United States, came out in fierce and startling terms. Mr. Trump has regularly criticized Germany for what he has described as the prevalence of German-made cars on American streets and for taking advantage of American largess to spend less on defense and more on education and social welfare. He has threatened the European Union with new tariffs on imported cars, as well as those already imposed on steel and aluminum.<\/p>\n
But in the meetings on Wednesday, Mr. Trump framed his criticism in security terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say, I think it\u2019s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we\u2019re supposed to be guarding against Russia,\u201d Mr. Trump went on. \u201cWe\u2019re supposed to protect you against Russia, but they\u2019re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that\u2019s very inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project has been opposed by the United States for many years, including under President Barack Obama, as well as by some European countries, like Poland, that warn it will give Russia too much leverage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
Nord Stream 2 would add two pipelines to the existing Nord Stream pipeline and increase overall annual capacity to 3.9 trillion cubic feet.<\/p>\n
The Germans argue that they have been diversifying their gas supplies, that they now get only about 9 percent of their energy from Russia \u2014 not the 70 percent that Mr. Trump claimed \u2014 and that Washington is angling to sell liquid natural gas to Germany instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
July 11, 2018 By\u00a0Steven Erlanger\u00a0and\u00a0Julie Hirschfeld Davis, The New York Times BRUSSELS \u2014 President Trump wasted no time. NATO\u2019s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, could barely finish the greetings at Wednesday\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}