Reports are emerging that President Trump spoke negatively about the NATO alliance during the G-7 Summit earlier this month:
President Trump earlier this month reportedly told the leaders of the Group of Seven member countries that NATO was “as bad as NAFTA,” according to Axios.
At the G-7 summit in Canada, Trump reportedly said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was “too costly for the U.S” and compared it to the North American Free Trade Agreement that he has often targeted as a bad deal.
“It will be an interesting summit. NATO is as bad as NAFTA. It’s much too costly for the U.S.,” Trump said during the meeting with leaders, according to an official who read notes transcribed from the closed-door meeting to Axios.
Trump was reportedly making a reference to the upcoming NATO summit in Brussels in July.
The president made the comment after reportedly telling G-7 leaders that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, be a part of Russia because people there speak Russian.
The report highlights what appears to be a growing rift between Trump and the United States’ Western allies.
More from the Axios report itself:
What we’re hearing: In one extraordinary riff during his meeting with the G7 heads of state earlier this month in Quebec, Trump told the other leaders: “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.” An official read this quote to me from notes transcribed from the private meeting.
Behind the scenes: Trump made the comment after telling the G7 leaders that Crimea probably should belong to Russia because everyone there speaks Russian, the source added. Trump then went on his usual riff about Germany not paying its fair share of defense spending, said the Europeans weren’t paying enough and that the U.S. is being ripped off.
- Then Trump said of the NATO Summit on July 11-12 in Brussels: “It will be an interesting summit. NATO is as bad as NAFTA. It’s much too costly for the U.S.”
Why this matters: NATO member states are worried about Russian aggression and they want an unambiguous sign that America has their back. By linking NATO to NAFTA — a trade deal that Trump considers an unmitigated disaster for America — Trump reinforced some of the Europeans’ worst fears that he’ll take a purely transactional approach to next month’s summit.
- Officials from four NATO member countries have told me they’re worried Trump undercut the shared values and commitments of the NATO alliance by spending most of his time bashing NATO members for not “paying enough” and meeting their defense spending commitments.
- Trump is broadly correct about the defense spending. Many NATO members have been shirking their responsibilities and are nowhere near their promise to spend 2 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on defense.
- But, as one senior European official put it to me: Trump could do a victory lap of sorts at next month’s summit, instead of bashing NATO members (which would please Putin.)
- Trump, the official said, could point out that NATO members have been increasing their defense spending, and say that it’s only because of his pressure. The official said he hoped — but wasn’t confident — Trump would take this gentler, more diplomatic route.
When Axios shared this reporting with the White House, officials did not attempt to deny these specific comments that were relayed from notes from the G7 heads of state meeting. But NSC spokesman Garrett Marquis said: “The president engaged in a constructive dialogue with his counterparts at G7. Any allegations otherwise are simply wrong.”
This report came out just hours before it was announced that President Trump would be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16th, which just happens to fall after he attends this year’s NATO meeting in Brussels and visits with British Prime Minister Theresa May. On some level, I suppose, it’s fortunate that Trump will be meeting with our NATO allies before meeting with Putin. After all, it’s fairly well known in Washington that Trump is the kind of person who is most influenced by the person or persons he spoke to most recently about a given topic. Taking that into account, one could hope that the leaders of the NATO members, particularly Prime Minister May, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, can influence the President’s thinking before he walks into his meeting in Finland with the Russian President. Of course, that assumes that Trump doesn’t use the meeting as a further opportunity to wreck our relationships with some of our closest allies.
This report also comes in the wake of more than a year of comments and actions from Trump since he became President, as well as when he was a candidate, that raise serious doubts about his commitment to the NATO alliance and emphasizes the damage that he has done to our relationships with our European allies. When the President visited Europe last year, for example, he left in his wake with many of our closest allies wondering just how committed the President was to the alliance and to its collective defense principles notwithstanding later assurances regarding that commitment on his part.
Outside of that, Trump has engaged in a number of other policies that have significantly soured the relationship between the United States and its allies, particularly our NATO allies. Last month, for example, the President revoked the exemption from the steel and aluminum tariffs that had been announced back in March that applied to American allies in Europe as well as Canada and Mexico. In doing so, Trump claimed that he was taking this action for “national security” reasons. Objectively speaking, of course, the idea that these allies are a national security threat to the United States, or that we could not rely on them as a source for aluminum and steel in the event of a national emergency or military threat is absurd. Needless to say, this didn’t go over very well with our allies in Europe and elsewhere. Canada’s Foreign Minister called the new tariffs “absurd,” for example, and European Union officials announced retaliatory tariffs against American goods. Things got even more bizarre in this regard as Trump exchanged harsh words with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prior to the G-7 Summit. Once he was at the summit, Trump essentially did everything he could to alienate America’s closest allies, thereby seemingly achieving a goal that Russia and, before it, the Soviet Union had only dreamed of, driving a wedge between the United States and its allies. After the Singapore Photo Op Summit, Trump continued his tirade against Trudeau, while polling revealed that Canadian public opinion about the United States was suffering as a result of American actions and the President’s rhetoric. Finally, it was reported at the same time that the President was considering what would effectively be a ban on German-built luxury automobiles, a threat that he continues to make.
None of this bodes well for the upcoming NATO summit meeting in Brussels, which will take place in just over two weeks. Given that it will take place in the wake of the aforementioned G-7 summit and just prior to Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom, which is likely to be rocky given the fact that he is wildly unpopular there, there’s plenty of reason to believe that the meeting in Brussels will not go well. If that happens, then President Putin will likely show up in Helsinki in a very good mood.
