President Trump met with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday, talking about bolstering defense cooperation. This is expected to come in the form of more US troops in Poland, as Trump says troops cut from Germany will probably be sent to Poland as a “strong message to Russia.”
Trump went after Germany during his comments, accusing them of being delinquent in NATO spending. Trump also repeated, as he so often does, the false claim that Germany “owes” NATO billions of dollars.
Poland spends just slightly over 2.0% of its GDP on its military, while Germany, with its much larger GDP, has fallen short of US demands. Poland’s conservative government has been more pro-Trump than Merkel’s in Germany as well, which probably leaves Trump inclined to shift the troops in that direction, above and beyond it being slightly closer to Russia.
This will likely only be a fraction of US troops leaving Germany, as many thousands of troops are being pulled out, while the talk with Poland is that 1,000 US troops already planned could be boosted to about 2,000.
Trump said unlike Germany, Poland is one of only eight members of the alliance that are fulfilling NATO’s target pledge of spending 2 percent of their gross national products on their own defense. He criticized Germany several times and said transferring the troops to Poland also sends a strong signal to thwart Russian aggression.
“But I think a stronger signal sent to Russia is the fact that Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars to purchase energy from Russia … and I’m saying ‘What’s that all about?’ … They’re spending billions to buy Russia and then we’re supposed to defend them from Russia. So that doesn’t work too well.”
This coming from the guy that wants to get along with Russia? And the “NATO is obsolete” cry has morphed completely into who is willing to pony up.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-06-24/logistical-hurdles-could-slow-troop-withdrawal-from-germany
NATO is obsolete because Israel decides Trump’s actions.
Like Pompeo wrote in a note passed to Bolton, “He is so full of shit.”
Too bad Trump is oblivious to what Pompeo actually thinks of him. At least we’d be rid of one cholesterol challenged swamp creature. But talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Gotta think the Polish people aren’t happy about that – except of course for the liquor salesmen, prostitutes, drug dealers, and golf courses.
“Strong message”. About what? Probably Ukraine.