At the top of NATO Donald Trump jostles his allies

How the allies react to the great shake-up of the transatlantic link orchestrated by Donald Trump? The NATO summit, Wednesday 11 and Thursday 12 July in Brussels, gave an overview of coping strategies, adopted by one and the other, to control, reduce or tolerate the imprecations of the American president, compared by Robin Niblett, director of the British think tank Chatham House, to a mafia godfather extorting trade concessions in exchange for protection.

Put under pressure on the issue of sharing the financial burden, the allies have avoided facing head-on Donald Trump, some showing off their efforts when others were low profile. Still unhappy, the president proposed to allies to set a new military spending target at 4 percent of GDP. "Everyone wondered if he was serious," Bulgarian President Roumen Radev said. "NATO is not a market where you can buy security. In a tweet, Donald Trump then demanded immediate compliance with the goal of 2% of GDP, and not in 2024, as the Alliance countries had decided at a summit in 2014.

NATO: "Europeans have the means but not the political will"

Trump attack Merkel

The explosion was almost instantaneous, during a working breakfast at the Embassy of the States -United. Donald Trump has engaged in a highly calculated communication exercise, shooting red on his favorite target, Angela Merkel, in the presence of the Secretary General of the Alliance Jens Stoltenberg and under the watch of the cameras of American television channels. . "Germany is totally controlled by Russia. They are taking 60% of their energy from Russia, they are paying billions of dollars, and we have to defend them against Russia. This is not normal, " unleashed the US president, as if he wanted to get rid of any complicity in Russia, four days before his bilateral summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. This planned attack also allowed him to sink a corner into the unity of the Europeans on a dossier – the energy dependence on Moscow – which divides them. Poland, in particular, believes that Europe does not need the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which aims to double direct gas deliveries to Germany from Russia via the Baltic Sea by 2020.

Always cautious, Angela Merkel responded with a courteous but firm tone, suggesting that she did not need a lesson on how to deal with authoritarian regimes, given her experience of East Germany. "I myself lived in a part of Germany occupied by the Soviet Union said the Chancellor. I am very happy that today we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany. We can therefore conduct our own policies, we can make independent decisions ". Tension dropped a notch during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. Face closed, Donald Trump assured, without really convincing, having "very good relations" with Angela Merkel who was, herself, cautiously declared satisfied with their exchanges of views.

L Is not ready to put everything on defense

Macron sets four priorities

Another scapegoat Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to guard against reprimands by announcing that the Forces Canadian armies will command a military training mission of NATO in Iraq next fall, where Canada will deploy 250 soldiers and four helicopters.

In a different register, Emmanuel Macron wanted the good student of the class defining four priorities for the Alliance: the "credibility of the collective means of defense" "effectiveness in the fight against terrorism and in the op rations "" modernity in the management of resources " NATO and " unity ". According to his entourage, the head of state called "not to weaken the Alliance" knowing that "a more uncertain context would be a source of more military expenditure" . The French president also had a bilateral meeting with Donald Trump. "We have a wonderful relationship", assured his American counterpart

NATO stuck between Trump and Putin

In the role of man-orchestra, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg worked to round the corner, emphasizing the Alliance's ability to make decisions, attributing to Donald Trump the merit of increased military spending by allies, "6% in real terms , in 2017 ". Disputes have always existed within the Alliance pleads the Norwegian who strives to maintain unity within a fractured alliance between an authoritarian pole embodied by Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Viktor Orban, with support from Poland, and a liberal pole represented by Theresa May, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron

Jens Stoltenberg also emphasized the twenty-five-page declaration adopted by the 29 member countries which denounces in particular "the aggressive actions of Russia undermining the international order based on the rules" condemns its destabilizing action in the east of Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea and adopts a series measures to strengthen the Alliance's military responsiveness

"In the world of Trump, allies are a burden"

Do Allies, especially Europeans, Make the Right Choice? striving to meet the requirements of Donald Trump, a chief partner who takes pleasure in dividing them and distributes good and bad points, as in an episode of The Apprentice his old reality show?
Nothing is less sure. "Europeans consider themselves allies of America, which makes them particularly vulnerable to Trump" comments Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, president of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia. "In the world of Trump, America is not a force of stability but a disruptive and the allies are a burden. The challenge for European leaders is to learn to live in a world where America has no allies by investing in an autonomous European defense capability rather than depending on the United States. The biggest risk for the European Union would be to become the guardian of a status quo that has ceased to exist.

François d'Alançon, special envoy to Brussels