One would expect that in anticipation of meeting with the heads of NATO's 29 nations, our so-called president would at least learn some basic facts about this nearly 70-year-old alliance.
Instead, an ignorant and boorish Donald Trump stunned these leaders with a lie that most NATO countries are financial deadbeats. He claimed that "many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years." With regard to NATO's actual finances, these countries don't owe anything.
In 2006, under pressure from the U.S., NATO countries promised they would increase their own national defense budgets to 2 percent of their gross domestic products.
The Great Recession of 2008 - largely caused by Anglo-American bankers, politicians and economists - caused havoc with budgets around the world, and by 2016 only five NATO nations had met the 2 percent goal. Contrary to Trump's claim, it is not U.S. taxpayers who will pay for these extra weapons; rather, it is the citizens of 23 NATO nations themselves.
After the United Nations outlawed "wars of aggression," the U.S. War Department was renamed the Defense Department in 1947. The idea was that the soft power of diplomacy and development aid would replace the hard power of armed intervention.
The U.S. spends a paltry 0.17 percent of its GDP on foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to reduce that by gutting the State Department's budget. A specific target may be the Office of Religion and Global Affairs. There are unfilled positions in programs tasked with curbing anti-Semitism and preventing radicalization in the Muslim world.
The 28-member European Union budgets on average 0.47 percent of GDP to foreign aid. Sweden, which is in the EU but not in NATO, allocates 1.4 percent, and Norway is next highest at 1.05 percent.
Sweden has also taken in a record number of refugees. With a population of 9.8 million, the compassionate Swedes accepted 150,273 asylum seekers from May 2015 to April 2016. This is 1.5 percent of Sweden's population.
During that same period the U.S. accepted 150,875 asylum seekers; we would have to accept 4.7 million to match the Swedes. From the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003 to 2014, we relocated only 115,000 Iraqi refugees, while Sweden admitted 78,000, 40 percent Assyrian Christians.
Under Saddam Hussein, Christians were safe and respected (his foreign minister was a Christian), but now their numbers have dropped from 1.4 million in 2003 to 275,000 today. President George W. Bush's invasion incited a civil war between Sunnis and Shia. Both were radicalized as a result. Should Sweden send Bush, his Vice President Dick Cheney et al. a bill for giving sanctuary to these good folks?
In absolute numbers Germany has accepted the most refugees: 890,000 in 2015 alone (1 percent of its population). The total number of Syrian refugees in Germany at the end of 2016 was 567,000. As with all German refugees, these Syrians commit crimes at the same rate as citizens, and only nine have been arrested for suspected terrorist activities.
In his speech at NATO headquarters, Trump refused to reaffirm our nation's commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty. This provision requires NATO to come to the aid of any member country that has been attacked. Presumably, Trump will not make this commitment until all member nations "pay up."
This is one of the most brazen and irresponsible examples of Trump's "America First" policy. This refusal gives comfort to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who would very much like a weaker NATO. It instills fear in those living in the small NATO countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, right on Russia's door step.
An editorial in the Kremlin-supported RT news outlet says it all: "In Europe, Donald Trump is Making Russia Great Again."
Nick Gier taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31 years. ngier006@gmail.com.
