In Europe, Trump's "flaws were painfully exposed"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/27/donald-trump-foreign-trip-europe"Once he reached Brussels, Trump seemed to abandon Obama’s foreign policy rule of ‘don’t do stupid shit’, and his inability to work by consensus was stark
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It was only when Air Force One reached Brussels that the caravan began to lose its way. That was perhaps inevitable for both policy and personal reasons. With King Salman and Netanyahu, there was a shared list of priorities and talking points: a view that Iran was a primary enemy, the desirability of huge US arms contracts, denunciations of terrorism. Trump was the centre of attention, literally treated like royalty and assured the things he did and said were “historic”.
In Europe, Trump had to play a different role: a senior member of a group seeking to act in concert and by consensus. But Trump does not do collegial, a fact that was grasped before in Europe but is now viscerally understood after the president shoved the Montenegrin prime minister out of the way to get front and centre of a Nato leaders’ photo-op.
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The lack of preparation began to show when he reached Brussels. At Nato, his prepared remarks at a 9/11 monument were largely a retread of his campaign speech about the alliance, which in turn was constructed around a misunderstanding of how it works. He accused the US allies gathered alongside him (in the shadow of a shattered fragment of the World Trade Center) of being deadbeats who had not paid their club
In terms of the common expenses of running Nato headquarters and infrastructure, this was simply not true. When it comes to the goal of Nato members spending 2% of their GDP on defence, the deadline is 2024, and the European allies have been increasing their expenditure since the Russian annexation of Crimea. And they have been contributing in other ways, including by way of blood and human lives in Afghanistan.
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The headline reads, "Trump: 'The Germans are bad, very bad.' "
Underneath, it says "The US President managed to irritate Europe with [his] drastic criticism of the German trade surplus. Also, at the NATO summit and at the G-7 meeting in Sicily, there was some discord."
In the article, from the main Düsseldorf paper, the Rheinische Post, he was quoted as saying, "Look at the millions of cars that they sell in the USA. Terrible. We will stop it."
I can only imagine what happens when Trump finds out that many of the German cars sold in the USA are made in the USA by American workers in Alabama and South Carolina. Both states used tax incentives to lure Mercedes and BMW there and give jobs to many American workers in previously economically depressed areas. Maybe Trump would prefer that Mercedes and BMW close up their operations in Alabama and South Carolina and move their whole operations to Canada or Mexico? I'll bet the Republican governors of Alabama and South Carolina would just cheer at THAT news, right?
But you know what? Not that I have anything against factory workers in Alabama or South Carolina, but I wish both companies would say they detect a decidedly hostile attitude toward their presence in the USA, and for that reason alone, they are closing down here and moving either to Canada or Mexico. Maybe that would finally convince these people to stop robotically voting Republican all the time.
Yeah, right, and we're setting an extra place at the table because Godot is coming to dinner, too.