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‘Disaster’ for Nato, US hurt as Trump does battle with ally Germany

  • Trump accused Germany of being ‘delinquent’ in payments to Nato
  • US president vows to stick with troop withdrawal plan

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US soldiers in the Nato-led Noble Partner 2017 multinational military exercises outside Tbilisi, Georgia. File photo: AP
Erik Kirschbaum

US President Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw 9,500 US soldiers stationed in Germany would hurt the United States’ interests and shake the Nato alliance, political leaders and defence analysts said.

Even though the 34,500 American troops that are still in Germany largely as a legacy of the Cold War, those US forces are poised to deploy rapidly to other parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East rather than to defend Germany. In outlining his plans to remove nearly a third of those forces by September, Trump said in Washington that Germany had been “delinquent” because it spends less on its defence than it and Nato partners promised to do by 2024, shortly after the Russian annexation of Crimea six years ago.

“Germany is delinquent, they’ve been delinquent for years and they owe Nato billions of dollars and they have to pay it,” Trump said on Monday. Germany does not have any debts to Nato, but has fallen short on its pledge to its Nato allies to spend 2 per cent of its GDP on defence by 2024. “So we’re protecting Germany and they’re delinquent. That doesn’t make sense.”

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The unseemly row between the two largest nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation could be a welcome gift to Russia, according to leaders in Congress in Trump’s own Republican Party, and to China as disputes between Washington and its allies strengthen Beijing’s position.

The fallout is also another illustration of transatlantic division after United States and Europe took notably different approaches in reaction to China’s moves to impose national security laws in Hong Kong.
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