Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
FAQ: The 2018 NATO summit’s two key issues
FAQ: The 2018 NATO summit’s two key issues
Jul 12, 2025 9:50 PM

Donald Trump has just left Brussels after a two-day NATO summit after he raised two key issues. Here’s what you need to know.

What were the main two key issues raised at the NATO summit?

President Trump objected to Germany’s agreement to build an energy pipeline with Russia, and he repeated his insistence that member nations spend at least two percent of GDP on national defense.

Why did he say Germany is “controlled by Russia”?

Donald Trump opened the summit by saying that “Germany is totally controlled by Russia.” He added, “Germany is a captive of Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, replied that she had “experienced myself how a part of Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union.”

His remarks stem from the fact that Germany imports a majority of its natural gas from Russia, a percentage that will only increase with the building of the Nord Stream 2.

What is the Nord Stream 2?

The Nord Stream 2 is an $11 billion pipeline that will provide Germany with natural gas supplied by the pany Gazprom. The NS2 will run under the Baltic Sea, from Russia to Germany – rather than utilizing the current energy pipeline that weaves underground through Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.

Why does NS2 matter?

Eastern European nations fear NS2 will give Russia the strategic leverage to cut off the region’s energy supply, as it did to Ukraine this year, as well as in 2006, 2008, and 2014. The NATO Declaration that members signed this week addresses the issue by saying, “We believe it is essential to ensure that the members of the Alliance are not vulnerable to political or coercive manipulation of energy, which constitutes a potential threat.”

Can U.S. economic policy affect this situation?

Thanks to higher yields from a lighter regulatory regime in Washington, the U.S. is exporting natural gas to Europe at near-record levels.

What proposals did President Trump make concerning military spending?

NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend two percent of their GDP on national defense; however, they have until 2024 to meet that obligation. President Trump would like to see that deadline moved up and the total amount doubled.

“During the president’s remarks today at the NATO summit, he suggested that countries not only meet mitment of two percent of their GDP on defense spending, but that they increase it to four percent,” said White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

What is the current state of NATO military spending?

Only six of its 29 members currently meet this obligation: the U.S., the UK, Greece, Estonia, Latvia, and Polandspend at least two percent of GDP on defense, according to NATO figures.

On the other hand, Germany currently spends 1.24 percent of GDP on defense and announced in May that it intends to boost this only to 1.5 percent by 2025.

This infographic presents the figures for each nation.

Trump has been critical of America’s lopsided NATO contributions for more than 30 years. In all, the U.S. provides approximately two-thirds of all NATO funding. The U.S. decreased its spending to 3.5 percent of GDP this fiscal year.

Have other people suggested, or opposed, spending four percent of GDP on national defense? What were their arguments?

The Heritage Foundation advanced the idea in its 2007 report, “Four Percent for Freedom,” written by James J. Carafano, Baker Spring, and Mackenzie Eaglen. It has subsequently been promoted by various politicians, including John McCain and Mitt Romney.

“Measuring defense spending as a percentage of GDP is the most appropriate and realistic means to gauge mitment to ensuring an adequate national defense,” Ed Feulner summarized in the report’s foreword. “Without maintaining annual defense budgets at 4 percent of GDP America’s military will e a ‘hollow’ force placing the lives of our young men and women in uniform at risk and jeopardizing the Pentagon’s ability to defend the nation’s vital national interests.”

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation opposed the plan in its report titled, “When ‘More’ is Meaningless.”

“A growing economy should allow Americans to keep more of the wealth they produce,” wrote its lead author, Matthew Fay. “Perpetually increasing the defense budget is unlikely to improve U.S. military readiness because it fails to address how defense spending is allocated or the organizational prerogatives of the military services.”

Does U.S. military spending affect European economic policy?

Some critics say that allowing the United States to provide Western Europe’s defense allows those governments to channel more funds into social welfare policies. “Freed from the obligation to spend on defense, the one core function expected of any government, European governments have chosen to divert their resources into” maintaining “bloated welfare states,” writes Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute.

But others say that’s beside the point. “It is true that the presence of U.S. forces in Europe contributes to the collective defense of European allies,” wrote Luke Coffey of the Heritage Foundation, but in his view the policy serves American interests by providing soldiers “geographical proximity to some of the most dangerous and contested regions in the world.”

of Ukraine. This photo has been cropped. CC BY 4.0.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Radio Free Acton: Was Jesus a socialist? The importance of poetry
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Dan Hugger, Research Associate at Acton, speaks with Larry Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Education, about the question that seems to be cropping up everywhere nowadays: Was Jesus a socialist? Then, Bruce Edward Walker talks to James Matthew Wilson about his new volume of poetry and on why poetry is important today. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Read “Jesus would have voted socialist, says Germany’s Left”...
The spiritual core of political hate
A new study confirms that creeping tribalism has Americans bitterly divided, acrimonious, and dismissive of others based on political differences. Behind this animosity lies a spiritual principle that Rev. Timothy Keller touched on during his address at this year’s Acton Institute annual dinner. Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, offered his insights in a lecture he titled “Identity, Business, and the Christian Gospel” – but its lessons go to the heart of every human being. Who am I?...
Russell Kirk’s 100th Birthday
I’d like to join in the chorus of Russell Kirk memorials that have graced the PowerBlog these past few days memorate Kirk’s 100th birthday. Over at The Federalist today, I can only hint at the significant contributions Kirk wrote on behalf of conservatism, sound economics and Christian humanism. Herewith a brief excerpt: [H]e was so much more than a Cassandra ceaselessly caviling against Communism. More to our great fortune, Kirk scoured the world’s great literature, philosophy, and political theory. From...
The Spanish tradition of freedom in the 16th and 17th centuries
The following article is written by Angel Fernández Álvarez and translated by Joshua Gregor. Juan de Mariana This October 31, I will give a conference entitled The Spanish School of the XVI and XVII Centuries at Harvard University, in order to explain in detail the “institutional framework” and the principles of growth upheld by the late Spanish scholastics. In the conference, organized by the Harvard Real Colegio Complutense, I will explain the importance of Christian humanism, which spread especially from...
The reason young people embrace socialism revealed
Why do young people throughout the West have an increasingly positive view of socialism? The answer has been ferreted out between the lines of a survey recently conducted for the Charles Koch Institute. Young people’s infatuation with socialism remains one of the most lamented (or celebrated) facts of the cultural landscape – but both sides agree, it is an undeniable fact. Americans under the age of 30 hold a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism, according to a Gallup...
Who is John Rawls and why should you care?
This is a guest post for the Acton PowerBlog By Kevin Brown Imagine asking a diverse group of rich, poor, attractive, unattractive, intelligent, unintelligent, white, non-white, educated, and non-educated — what makes a society just. Do you think you would get the same answer? Neither do I. Diverse individuals have diverse experiences, values, and contexts — and our varied backgrounds will inevitably color our perception of what is just, fair, and equitable. Given this, how can we as a society...
What determines the value of your money?
The value of money is determined by how much (or how little) of it is in circulation. But who makes that decision, and how does their choice affect the economy at large? Doug Levinson looks at the role of the U.S. Federal Reserve efforts to affect inflation and deflation affects the value of our money. ...
The best ways (empirically speaking) to alleviate global poverty
Virtually all poverty es from economic growth and migration—not redistribution or philanthropy. That’s how economist Bryan Caplan summarizes a fascinating new working paper by Lant Pritchett of the Harvard Kennedy School and Center for Global Development. To make it easier to get the gist of the argument (without having to read all 32 pages), I’ve taken the liberty of “interviewing” the paper. All questions are my own and all answers (with the exception of the parts in brackets) are exact...
The political manipulation of religion
The fact that something is political does not mean that it is not religious, says Paul Marshall. Instead of describing something as political, not religious, we might should describe it as the political manipulation of religion, or the insincere use of religion: This stress that events are not religion but politics can lead to misunderstanding the nature of both religion and politics. It can be akin to saying that a table is not round but red. But tables can be...
Alexis de Tocqueville, socialism, and the American Way
Tocqueville determined that the one defining factor in the United States was equality of condition, says John Wilsey in this week’s Acton Commentary. Tocqueville noticed that Americans apparently had the singular ability to prevent equality of conditions from yielding democratic despotism. Through voluntary associations, vigorous local government, a pursuit of self-interest rightly understood, and laws that were based on an accepted moral structure taught in disestablished church bodies, Americans were able to strike that critical balance between private interests and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved