GERMANY HOWLS WHEN TRUMP PULLS TROOPS

According to the WSJ President Trump has decided (June 7, 2020) to pull 9500 of the @35,000 ot our troops stationed in Germany.  The German response was typical...anti- Trump blather.  “It’s completely unacceptable” and the false claim that President Trump was “weakening NATO” or “upsetting the post-WW II world order”!

Our troops have been stationed in Germany for 70 years or so costing us dearly while bolstering the German economy where our troops spend their paychecks.   The local economy around troop bases has become dependent upon the economic presence of these soldiers and their families.  But an even more significant effect  has been that the Germans have never needed to spend their tax money on defense.  Our presence in Germany may save them more than one percent (of GDP) on their defense expenses or perhaps $50 billion in US dollars.   They are reluctant to change the system —so for them it is “unacceptable”.

Perhaps that’s why the Germans have such a “good life”.   They have the best health care system in Europe, exceptional transportation systems, clean, well run affluent cities, and they spend magnificently on social welfare and the social safety net, offering long vacations, psychological  leaves, exorbitant family leave and year long maternal leaves.

Much of this domestic spending is possible because Deutschland  spends little on their national defense.   Germany expends  about 1% of GDP on defense.  Other more independent nations spend many times more. American tax payers have the burden of three times that amount!   Our formal “defense” spending is well over 3% οf our GDP.     The German federal government.  relieved of defending its borders,  can then afford to spend lavishly on domestic spending—keeping all those Germans fat and happy and Ms Merkel in her post as PM for the last 15 years.  

Those German  defense costs have been transferred to the backs of hard working American tax payers.  We American workers pay so the Germans can live longer and  happier lives than we can as they freely and often cast dispersions on our race relations, our government and our people in general.  So we keep them safe and we get no thanks.

To add to Trump’ chagrin the Germans have agreed to purchase natural gas—not from America their long term benefactor —but Mr Putin’s Russia via pipeline. .

So the only world order that President Trump is threatening is the well heeled,overfed  pampered German tax payer.  Trump is only attempting to level the paying field for the US worker - so let’s give him a chance to do that.