RATIONALE OF PRESIDENT ELECT TRUMP REGARDING NATO, EU, AND GERMANY

1. President elect Donald Trump calls NATO obsolete first because it was designed many, many years ago, secondly countries aren’t paying what they should and thirdly NATO didn’t deal with terrorism. NATO has problems.

Rationale: American taxpayers are becoming more and more wary of fronting the bill for other nation’s defense. Countries not meeting the 2% GDP spending minimum on defense should pay the U.S. to have their forces there. NATO members should be  more independent and capable in terms of their national defense and their ability to form partnerships with other countries to confront mutual problems and concerns. European countries should  regain their own independent military responsibilities, and be mutually invested in the continuation of collective peace.

2. President elect Donald Trump praised Britons for leaving Europe and predicts Britain’s exit from the EU will be a success and that other European Union members will follow the UK in leaving the bloc because people want their own identity and don’t want outsiders to come in and destroy it.

Rationale: All of Europe is now challenged as never since the end of the cold war, by persistent recession, external immigration and Russian revanchism. These may be easy to exaggerate, but they are real. Anti-Europe sentiment in most of Europe is found in roughly a third of the population, and is growing. This is ominous for European unity

3. President elect Donald Trump portrays the EU as an instrument of German domination with the purpose of beating the U.S. in international trade. For that reason, he’s fairly indifferent whether the EU breaks up or stays together.

Rationale: Germany called on other European countries to balance their budgets and coordinate economic policies as a first step toward a ‘fiscal union that will leave Germany dictating the financial terms for the rest of Europe. There is a perception that Germany is too powerful politically and economically, that it is de facto center of EU decision making. Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed Europeans to impose sanctions on Russia over its treatment of Ukraine, she and her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble took the lead in deciding how the Greek crisis should be handled, she barely consulted anyone in the EU when she invited Syrian refugees to Germany. If there’s anyone recently who has determined European policy whenever a crisis arose, it’s Mrs. Angela Merkel. Germany benefits economically from sharing a currency with weaker economies.

4. President elect Trump holds the view that Merkel’s open-border refugee policy was a ‘catastrophic mistake’

Rationale: More than one million refugees have come to Germany. Many German citizens have expressed sharp discontent over their government’s open border policy. The sudden presence of one million refugees did result in a crime wave. Chancellor Merkel’s pro-refugee policies have also exposed rifts in the European Union, where countries have resisted taking in refugees. Chancellor Merkel rubbed a lot of people across Europe the wrong way by forging ahead on her own by taking in so many refugees without a real plan. Among the concerns in Germany are that Chancellor Merkel’s government has allowed too many refugees to come into the country too quickly and that newcomers may claim low-cost housing and low-skilled jobs that should be available to Germans. Some citizens also worry that helping refugees will be costly to taxpayers, and that the refugees, who are 70% Muslim, will change the predominantly Christian culture.