Scholz says Trump NATO remarks 'irresponsible and dangerous'

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz  Monday criticized former US President Donald Trump for claiming that he would withhold security from NATO members who do not spend enough on defense.

"Let me clearly say due to recent developments that any relativizing of NATO's collective defense guarantee is irresponsible and dangerous and is only in Russia's interests," Scholz said after talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Berlin. 

On Saturday, Trump told a campaign rally in South Carolina that he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that did not spend enough on defense.

The words were particularly shocking for front-line NATO countries like Poland, where anxieties run high over the war just across its eastern border in Ukraine.

Tusk encourages greater EU, NATO defense 

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland and Germany should together take joint responsibility for boosting European defense and that increasing defense production was an absolute priority for the bloc.

"There is no reason for the EU to be weaker than Russia" he said, adding that Europe should achieve "greater air defense capabilities and ammunition production capabilities" within a year or so. 

Tusk also told reporters in Berlin it was in the interest of all NATO countries to increase funding for joint military capabilities, regardless of what Trump said. 

NATO has a spending guideline that says every member country ought to spend a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense. Several NATO members do not meet the target.

Germany is expected to meet the target this year for the very first time since the end of the Cold War, but only thanks to exceptional spending that's not part of the main budget. Poland, meanwhile, shells out proportionally even more than the US officially acknowledges as defense spending, at over 3.9% of its annual GDP.

European members should meet NATO target, says expert

Many experts also say that part of Trump's argument is correct. Christoph Heusgen, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, for example, told DW that "Trump has a point."

"The European members of NATO... have committed 10 years ago to spend 2% of their GDP on defense" and "many countries, including my own, have not delivered," Heusgen said.

Heusgen was a senior foreign policy and security adviser to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel between 2005 and 2017, as her successive governments tried with only very modest success to boost defense spending.

It was important that "Germany and others continue to do that, not to do a favor to President Trump, but to secure European protection," Heusgen told DW.

Before his talks with Tusk on Monday, Scholz was breaking the ground at the construction site for a new Rheinmetall artillery ammunition factory, where he said that Germany would follow through with its commitment to spend 2% of its GDP on defense. 

Tusk resets relations with Paris

Tusk traveled to Paris earlier in the day as well, seeking closer ties for cooperation to drive EU forward.

There is no alternative to the partnership between Europe, NATO and the United States for facing mounting security risks, Tusk said in a joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Poland, under the populist Law and Justice party, saw several disputes with EU institutions. The country was on a slippery slope away from the EU’s rule of law principles. Tusk is determined to change that.

In welcoming Tusk, Macron wrote it was the start of a "new page" in relations between France and Poland. "Let us continue to work together for the security and sovereignty of Europe" Macron said.

rm/lo (Reuters, dpa)