Trump could not have played it better as a "useful idiot" for Putin's plans, and Russia's benefit. An unstable Europe was to be avoided after WWII. Stability was the goal of the Marshal Plan; the United Sates sponsored the Marshal Plan to support and sustain keep peace in Europe.
It is obvious today, given the cost of wars like Afghanistan, that the Marshal Plan idea was cheap compared to war! BUT Trump and his advisors are destroying the intent of the Marshal Plan. It will cost the United States dearly in the future.
Not knowing history, not understanding history, dooms us to repeat it.
"How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe"
The German Chancellor and other European leaders have run out of patience with the President.
By Susan B. Glasser Dec 24 & 31 2018 Issue
"his past July, on the final day of the NATO summit in Brussels, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, proposed a closed-door emergency meeting. The emergency was Donald Trump. Minutes earlier, the President had arrived late to a session where the Presidents of Ukraine and Georgia were making their case to join NATO. Trump interrupted their presentation and unleashed a verbal assault on the members of the alliance, calling them deadbeats and free riders on American power. Trump threatened to go his “own way” if they didn’t immediately pay more for their own defense. His barrage centered on Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving democratic leader.“You, Angela,” Trump chided Merkel. Most of NATO’s members had failed to fulfill the goal of spending two per cent of G.D.P. for defense, but Trump focussed on Germany’s military spending of just over one per cent of G.D.P. In front of television cameras the previous day, he had accused Germany of being “totally controlled by Russia,” because of a proposed new gas pipeline. His tweets that day sounded like blackmail. “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade. Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025.”"
Trump showed his ass in his attack, his big fat ass. STUPID! Trump did not understand the 2% is a goal, that the USA wisely built its own military NOTWITSTANDING NATO Allies defense expenditures, and, finally, Trump does not realize a balanced budget is a DEFENSE measure of sorts as it aids in sustaining a strong economy.
BTW no one has missed the fact Trump fears and attacks strong women.
"It fell to another woman, Dalia GrybauskaitÄ—, the President of Lithuania, to defend Merkel. Germany had sent troops to protect Lithuania from Russia, GrybauskaitÄ— pointed out, and Merkel was committed to spending more on NATO’s common defense. The Danish and the Norwegian Prime Ministers also pushed back. In the corner of the room, Merkel strategized with other Europeans about how to stop Trump. Eventually, Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, offered the President what he appeared to want most: a way to claim victory. "
Of course. Trump smashes and dashes, taking credit and declaring victory even when there is no benefit to anyone.
"when he emerged from the meeting and spoke with reporters, Trump lied [Nothing new in lying, or "truthful hyperbole, right Tweety?], claiming not only that his allies had capitulated to him but also that they would consider his demand to raise their annual military spending to four per cent of G.D.P., an assertion so politically impossible that Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, immediately issued a public rebuttal.
Trump is not intellectual.
"The President and the Chancellor are almost epically mismatched. Merkel is a trained scientist, who declined a teaching position because she refused to inform on her colleagues. She has a distinctly analytical cast of mind, and she has tried to reason with Trump, or to explain complicated situations that he has persisted in oversimplifying or whose facts he has ignored entirely. “She talks about things that you get the impression he doesn’t fully grasp,” one of the senior German officials told me. Once, Merkel attempted to explain the intricate politics of the Middle East to Trump. “It seemed like she was expecting too much of her audience,” the official concluded. Other leaders, such as Macron and ShinzÅ Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, have had similar experiences, but they decided to play to Trump’s ego, whether with military parades or long rounds of golf. Not Merkel. “She doesn’t flatter,” another senior German official told me."
No compliments or ass kissing from Merkel. In a meeting with Tweety about trade, facts and figures were presented. Facts are Trump's worst nightmare.
"In meetings between Trump and Merkel, the German team came armed with numbers to prove to Trump that he was wrong to call Germany the winner in the U.S.-German trade relationship. The Germans told Trump that, if you take the whole trade balance, it’s actually in America’s favor. Trump “just laughed it off,” one of the German officials told me, leading them to conclude that “it’s very hard to get through to him with fact-based arguments.”"
The G7 meeting in Canada was another debacle. The disappointment in Europe with Trump has gotten very ugly and sad.
"As the realities of Trump and Trumpism have settled at last on European leaders, so, too, has a kind of despair. At a debate that I moderated this summer in Estonia, Constanze Stelzenmüller, a German security analyst, compared Trump’s foreign policy to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” with the Europeans as the handmaids."
Trump is impulsive, shoots from the hip with no knowledge of potential outcomes for his actions, and he is unstable and inconsistent.
"Trump is also proceeding with plans to withdraw from a crucial Reagan-era arms treaty with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Obama Administration had first warned that Russia was in violation of the treaty, but Trump’s announcement of a pullout was abrupt and categorical, alienating longtime allies, who felt taken by surprise."
Tweety's nasty, rude style is his handicap. He is not doing so much different than Obama in terms of what is being asked like increased defense spending. BUT Tweety's style to bully and insult is his worst enemy and hurts his plan. He makes the deal win-lose, when he could get more done with a win-win style.
"The irony is that, for all of Trump’s bluster and threats, the Trump Administration’s positions on these issues, aside from the Iran nuclear deal, are consistent with his predecessor’s. Obama also pushed for greater European defense spending, set in motion NATO troop increases in Eastern Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and objected to Nord Stream 2. Many German leaders oppose the pipeline project, too, and favor more defense spending. Where Trump is different is in how far he is willing to push his allies to accomplish long-standing American priorities, not to mention his public denunciations, abrupt policy shifts, and willingness to insult his allies. This behavior has thoroughly alienated Germans, who are sharply divided on many issues but united in their dislike of Trump and their resistance to just about anything he champions. The Pew Global Attitudes survey this year found that only ten per cent of Germans had a favorable view of Trump."
FAILING DIPLOMACY, ignorant diplomacy, rude "diplomacy." These describe Trump's State Department.
"On November 6th, Trump suffered his own political setback, losing control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats in the midterm elections. Nevertheless, the President and his Administration have shown every sign of escalating the fight with Europe. “We really do need Germany to do more than it has since the end of the Cold War,” one of the senior Trump Administration officials told me in early December. A few days later, Secretary of State Pompeo gave his bellicose speech in Brussels, the heart of European multilateralism, attacking the E.U. and an array of other international organizations. They “must be reformed or eliminated,” he warned."
Eliminate international organizations intended to assist in sustaining peaceful, productive choices in the world WITH NO PLAN, NO SPECIFICS?
