Posted on by Californiacontrarian

WaPo on Merkel

On 5/28/17 the trans-Atlantic whining hit a new decibel record amplified by articles in The Washington Post. We had the Chancellor of Germany, as reported by WaPo, lamenting that Europe might have to stand on its own two feet! “[We] really must take our fate into our own hands.” Imagine that!  Cry me a river!

Of course the chancellor, Angela Merkel, was playing to her anti-American audience at a beer hall political rally, and in the days just prior to that she was the beneficiary of her uber liberal cheerleader, Barack Hussein Obama, whispering sweet nothings in her ear! (What the heck was B.O. doing in Europe while President Trump was in the vicinity? –  perhaps a topic for another day!)

Anyway, according to one of the ‘Dueling Banjos’ (WaPo) this was the beginning of a separation that can only be the fore-runner of a nasty upcoming divorce, with ‘untold damage to the US -German union’. Could it be that Merkel needed to appear strong, and similar to Chancellor Gerhard Schroder in 2002, was bad-mouthing the U.S. for his /her own political gain.

Again according to WaPo the two world leaders ‘sparred’ on defense, trade, and climate change. Let’s look at these one at a time.

First let’s consider the differences between the two on ‘defense’.

Apparently Merkel was upset about President Trump’s pointed comments about “members of NATO not paying their fair share”, as only five of the twenty-seven members of NATO are paying the amount that they agreed on a number of years ago. Germany is not one of these five – whereas the USA is.

The military budget for Germany for 2020 is 39 billion euros, but it will need to be 65.8 billion euros in order to meet their obligation of 2% of their GDP.

Perhaps she was embarrassed that Germany was called out on their cheating as were most of the member countries in the European Union. Perhaps she was further embarrassed because the military of the European Union is actually on the pathetic side as they have not invested in long-distance transports, satellites, drones, or air-to-air refueling, and during the NATO intervention in Libya they ran out of bullets! In this regard Merkel commented that the days of relying on others was “over to a certain extent”.

Second was the issue of trade.

One of the other things that Merkel was supposedly upset about was President Trump talking about the trade deficit between Germany and the USA, and his alluding to all of the BMWs that are sold in the U.S. There is, in fact, a massive trade deficit for the U.S. with Germany to the tune of over $67 billion per year. This U.S.trade deficit is secondary only to the trade deficit with China. Why was Merkel upset about this? Why would one be upset when the truth about this trade deficit comes out? Why isn’t Germany buying more U.S. products?
And lastly of course is one of the big tenets of Merkel’s liberal religion . . . Climate Change, or better known in its previous life as Global Warming, and the subsequent Paris Climate Accords – agreed to” by the previous administration. The Paris Accords is a treaty, but it was never brought to a vote in the Senate, because B.O. knew that it would not pass a Senate vote. So wallah . . . “It’s not a treaty”! In these Accords there are no significant cutbacks for China or India until 2030, and there are no penalties if the suggested goals are not reached! Whether or not Climate Change is the real deal, how is this treaty beneficial for the U.S.? It almost sounds like the ones who thought that this was good for the U.S. are the same ones who negotiated the recent deal with Iran . . . Oops, they are the same ones!

So to me it appears that WaPo is in a tizzy because President Trump is following through on campaign promises that he made about NATO, U.S. trade deficits, and The Paris Accords. The Washington Post is crying, “Wolf”, when there is no wolf, as President Trump had a very successful European trip. However, no one should be really surprised as The Washington Post often seems to cry, “Wolf” when things seem to be in the best interests of the U.S.

 

 

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