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One of the most difficult points to resolve, when President Donald Trump launches into a tirade, is who is targeting his angry remarks, and why. The exact proportions of demagoguery, embezzlement and personal spades are rarely clear, as was the case last week, when Trump castigated the immigration judges, the F.B.I. "lovers," and his own Attorney General, in addition to causing a tumult at the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in Brussels. The problem began Wednesday with a breakfast in which Trump announced that Germany was now "totally controlled by Russia", that it was a "state" captive "
. Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, to build a gas pipeline to his nation. But it was a particularly strange explosion considering the context and the timing. Trump, after a stopover in the UK, went to Helsinki for a summit with Vladimir Putin that will begin with a one-on-one encounter in which Trump will not be coerced even by his own team. Last week, he called the agenda of this meeting "cowardly".
Even more than most subjects, when Trump evokes Russia, he seems to speak of something that is defined less by reality than by need or want it to be at this moment. Indeed, almost every mention of Putin during Trump's trip was disorienting, as he turned away from saying that the Russian president was "nice to me" to warn that NATO was selling in Russian slavery. So what did Trump really do about last week when he talked about enemies, allies and Russia?
One possibility, as always with this president, is money. "They are paying billions of dollars to Russia, and now we have to defend them against Russia," he said, referring to NATO member states . It was not fair, he said. Members – a group of "delinquents" – were expected to spend at least two percent of their G.D.P. on the army, but most did not, while America spent more than four percent. (In fact, three and a half years, almost every figure cited by Trump in the negotiations fluctuated or was wrong.)
Trump is not the first president to worry about this disparity – Barack Obama did it too – and the right balance. and the total amount, are worth being debated. Trump, however, seems to reject the entire premise of a mutual defense, considering NATO as a kind of bizarro protection racket, in which the boss of Mob distributes money envelopes to traders . (Or, as he recently told a crowd in Montana, "We are the schmucks paying for everything.") On Thursday, Trump proclaimed, "I believe in NATO ," immediately undermined sentiment complaining that Europe was unfair to American farmers.
Another likely explanation for this performance is that the members of NATO were simply subject to the phenomenon of one tyrant showing up to another. "He is a competitor," said Putin's Trump. "Someone was saying: is he an enemy? Mmm, no, he's not my enemy." Is he a friend? No, I do not know him enough. Trump, by this measure, does not not interested in anyone's relationship with Putin except his own, not that of Europe, not that of America.The political content of his demands was barely relevant; his message to Putin was that he had shouted at NATO .Putine, however, will probably have a way to take advantage of the ill-will that Trump has created, to potentially dangerous effects in places like that Crimea and Syria.
Trump's European crisis was also, no doubt, intended for the public home.Tuesday, the same day as one of the "FBIs" Lovers "- that is, the veteran FBI agent Peter Strzok has testified forcefully before two House committees about the integrity of the investigation into the Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, but Trump rarely saw the point in talking to Putin. "What am I going to do?", He said. can deny it. It's one of those things. All I can do is say "You have?" And "Do not try again". Russia, in this sense, becomes a shortcut for "all these things" – forgerous and questionable promises and money – which are only a part of the daily life of a political candidate American. (The next day, Robert Mueller, the special advocate, got a dozen indictments against Russian officials accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee.)
Trump does not cared little about his next guest, the British Premier. Minister, Theresa May. In an interview in Sun, published Thursday night, while she was hosting him at a dinner at Blenheim Palace, he said May had "destroyed" Brexit, because She "did not listen to me". He then endorsed, as future Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, May's new Foreign Minister, freshly deceased and self-destructive, mainly because "he obviously appreciates me." With that , and a shift towards immigration in Europe. You lose your culture "), Trump prepared to take tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle, avoiding mass demonstrations against him in London
Merkel, meanwhile, was involved in a battle over Immigration in its own coalition At the beginning of the month, it accepted, perhaps tragically, tighter controls at the German border, yet it remains the closest leader to Europe. to an anti-Trump this alone may explain his need to portray her as a captive, with all that concerns a woman in a position of power that he seems to find so discordant.At the top of the G-7 in June, he would have finished a meeting by taking some Starburst sweets out of his pocket, throwing them on the table and saying, "Here, Angela, do not say I'm never giving you anything."
Crucial, when it's about Trump, Merkel has an unmatched talent for exposing the true meaning of his words. "I have known, in my own life, a part of Germany that was controlled by the Soviet Union," she said in Brussels. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, when she was thirty-five years old, Merkel was a quantum chemist in East Germany. The contrast is not only between his life experience and that of Trump – or, to put it another way, between his harshness and his fanfaronnism – but between his consciousness of the shadows of the past and his dangerous anhistoricism. She added: "I am very pleased that today, we, the Federal Republic of Germany, are united in freedom.For this reason, we can say that we can form our policies of independently and make decisions independently. "This time it was Merkel who, while invoking Russia, seemed to be talking about something else: from America, a country now trump. And the truth, in the end, is Trump's real target. ♦
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