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Trump rips into Germany at NATO chief breakfast

US president’s tirade against Berlin kicks off two-day summit with a combative tone.

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

U.S. President Donald Trump laced into Germany ahead of a high-stakes NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels, declaring at a breakfast meeting Wednesday morning that Germany is “totally controlled by Russia” and lashing out at the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

Trump’s remarks appeared to stun NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who has been working hard to convince Trump that NATO allies are responding to the president’s repeated demands for increased military spending.

“I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” Trump said in his opening remarks at the breakfast, which were broadcast live on television.

“So we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia,” Trump continued. “And I think that’s very inappropriate.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel later hit back at Trump’s criticism, reminding him that she had experienced Soviet occupation herself.

“Because of given circumstances I want to point out one thing: I experienced the Soviet occupation of one part of Germany myself. It is good that we are independent today,” said Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, a former satellite state of the Soviet Union.

Trump’s tirade against Germany — the biggest and richest NATO ally after the United States — kicked off the two-day congress of NATO heads of state and government with a combative and deeply negative tone, with the president harping on one of the most deeply divisive issues among NATO allies and within the European Union.

In recent days, European President Donald Tusk repeated his own criticism and opposition to the Nord Stream 2 project, which Germany and other supporters, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, have defended as a commercial project with no political subtext.

Trump, in his remarks, called out Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s former Chancellor, for his involvement in the pipeline project.

“It should have never been allowed to have happened,” Trump said. “But Germany is totally controlled by Russia. Because they’ll be getting 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline … I think it’s a very bad thing for NATO and I don’t think it should have happened, and I think we have to talk to Germany about it.”

The Nord Stream 2 project — a planned gas pipeline from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea that is meant to add 55 billion cubic meters of gas to the existing route — has provoked pushback from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the European Commission, over concerns that it would tighten Russian-owned Gazprom’s grip on a region traditionally highly dependent on Russian gas.

Brussels worries that the new pipeline would give Gazprom a stronger position on the EU’s gas market, undermining the Commission’s energy union project, which is aimed at diversifying the bloc’s gas supplies and cutting reliance on Russia.

The issue is one on which “allies disagree,” Stoltenberg acknowledged. But he reminded the president that “despite differences,” NATO is about uniting around “to protect and defend each other.”

In attacking Germany over the gas pipeline project, Trump was also making a potentially dangerous link between security and defense issues and economic disputes. Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, Trump criticized NATO and EU allies simultaneously over military spending and on trade.

Stoltenberg, in particular, has sought to separate those two issues, in a bid to keep the alliance unified in its military mission and to protect it from the much more complex trade discussion.

At the opening breakfast, Trump also repeated his criticism of Germany’s failure to meet the NATO spending target. At a 2014 NATO summit, leaders had agreed to work “toward” the 2 percent goal by 2024, but Trump has mistakenly referred to it in recent days as a “current” commitment.

“And on top of that Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, while the US is paying 4.2 percent in actual numbers of a much larger GDP,” Trump said.

Trump’s has repeatedly pummelled NATO allies, especially Germany for not spending more on defense — but the American president has often left the impression that he does not fully understand how NATO financing works and that the goal allies set of spending 2 percent of GDP on their militaries by 2024 represents national military spending, not spending specifically on the NATO alliance.

Speaking outside NATO headquarters after the breakfast, Stoltenberg insisted that despite Trump’s tendency to use “direct language,” NATO allies “all agree” on the need for more spending and said he expects “open and frank discussion” during the summit.

European Council President Donald Tusk, appearing at a news conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday morning, conceded that there was deep disagreement in the EU over the Nord Stream project. In that sense, Trump is hitting at an area where the EU and NATO allies are extremely vulnerable.

“When it comes to Nord Stream, we discussed Nord Stream 2, but unfortunately there is little news,” Tusk said, noting that the European Commission was seeking greater authority in an effort to potentially stop the project.

“The Commission is seeking a mandate to be able to apply the EU’s energy rules to the pipeline,” Tusk said. “Unfortunately we still have some member states with a completely different opinion. My personal view on this matter is, I hope so, well-known: Nord Stream 2 is a mistake and will not serve the best European interests. It is against our strategic interests, our security, also our rules.”

Trump has made a special target of Germany in the weeks and months leading up to the NATO summit, including by questioning whether the U.S. should maintain its military presence in Germany — where more than 30,000 personnel are stationed. The U.S. European and African military commands are located in Germany.

U.S. military officials, and German officials, have sought to tamp down any concern that Trump will actually make any dramatic change in the U.S. force posture in Germany, which NATO and European military commanders view as crucial.