by Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture:
What a turnaround. The NATO summit this week was heading for an almighty crash, its leaders were bracing for impact, and then, suddenly, at the last moment, the alliance pulled out of a nosedive, and everyone was happy ever after.
What happened? U.S. President Donald Trump came to Ankara in a fury over bashing the Europeans. Then the mood swung like a person who just got his rocks off. He was bought off with a $160 billion pledge from the European and Canadian NATO vassals. Money talks for this American president, whose administration is a byword for graft and grift.
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The final declaration from the Ankara summit states that the European and Canadian members are to donate $80 bn for military aid to Ukraine in 2026 and 2027. That is a total of $160 bn.
Under Trump, the United States has apparently stopped sending money to Ukraine. The NATO arrangement works from the Europeans buying American weapons and equipment for Ukraine. What the latest pledge means is that the 31 NATO members are handing a massive subsidy to the U.S. military-industrial complex.
There’s a lot more from where that came from, too. Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, and total Trump flunky, was waxing lyrical about how Europe and Canada were due to spend an additional $300 bn on military next year. Much of this money will be spent on buying U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets and Patriot air defense missile systems. In other words, another huge subsidy to American corporations.
This flaunting of money explains the dizzying turnaround in Trump’s behavior over the two-day summit. Going into the conference in Ankara, Trump was berating the NATO alliance as “useless and ridiculous”. He was griping about how it was a one-way street of American military spending and “protection” for European “wasters”.
NATO members were expecting a disastrous display of disunity. Then suddenly, on the second day, Trump and the 31 other NATO leaders went into a behind-closed-doors session from which the media was excluded.
Trump emerged hailing NATO “unity” and a “lot of love in the room.” He claimed that all the heads of state declared their love for him and begged him to remain as their leader.
One can only imagine the scenes of obsequiousness and utter debasement as European politicians lined up to kiss Trump’s ring. Flattery and ego-stroking are one thing. But the money talking is another.
NATO’s Rutte has evidently persuaded Trump that Europe is a lucrative cash cow for American corporations. It’s an opportunity to squeeze, not walk away from, as the grumpy Trump had threatened to do on numerous occasions, with his perception that the U.S. was doing all the heavy lifting in NATO. Yes, American soldiers and warplanes tend to do the war fighting as in Iran currently. But there’s a new role developing, where the Europeans are turning their economies over to fuel the American war machine.
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