US President Donald Trump charged on Wednesday that Germany is “delinquent” in its contributions to NATO, accusing the US ally of stinting on defense while it pays Russia billions of dollars for energy.

“So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business News.

“So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! Okay?” he said.

Last Update: Wednesday, 26 June 2019 KSA 16:04 - GMT 13:04 </s> US President Donald Trump charged Wednesday that Germany is "delinquent" in its contributions to NATO, accusing the US ally of stinting on defense while it pays Russia billions of dollars for energy

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - APP - 26th Jun, 2019 ) :US President Donald Trump charged Wednesday that Germany is "delinquent" in its contributions to NATO , accusing the US ally of stinting on defense while it pays Russia billions of Dollars for energy.

"So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay," he said in a wide-ranging interview with Fox business news.

"So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! okay?" he said. </s> Trump on Wednesday aired a new complaint about Japan, Washington's closest ally in Asia, lamenting the U.S.' decades-old defense pact with the country as one-sided and unfair.

The U.S. president said the more than 60-years-old treaty was one-sided to the disadvantage of Washington as the Japanese military had no obligation to come to U.S. defense.

"If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and protect them with our lives and with our treasure," he said, referring to the U.S.' guaranteed protection and aid to the east Asian country if it ever comes under attack.

"But if we're attacked, Japan doesn't have to help us. They can watch it on a Sony television," he told the Fox Business Network during a telephone interview.

His remarks came just hours before he headed to the country for the G-20 summit.

This isn't the first time Trump has bemoaned military agreements with Japan. According to Bloomberg, he recently spoke privately about withdrawing from the defense treaty with Japan as he is of the view that the post-WWII pact treated the U.S. unfairly.

However, Trump has not taken any steps in this regard and sources have said such a move is highly unlikely.

Trump's recent dig was a part of a wider policy of fixing what he says is a system rigged against the U.S. He is currently deeply engaged in his "America First" agenda that demands two-way agreements in foreign policy and international trade.

"Almost all countries in this world take tremendous advantage of the United States. It's unbelievable," he said in the lengthy interview.

Casting his eye over the wider landscape, Trump also lashed out at close partners Vietnam and Germany.

Vietnam is "even worse than China" when it comes to unfair trading practices, he said. Vietnam is the "single worst abuser."

He described Germany — part of the bedrock of the U.S. alliance with western Europe — as "delinquent" for not paying enough to NATO's budget.

"So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay," he said. "So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! Okay?" </s> BRUSSELS — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday ratcheted up pressure on NATO allies to increase their defense spending, amid pushback from Germany’s top diplomat over President Donald Trump’s single-minded effort to boost the military budgets of members of the Western military alliance.

The meeting of NATO’s 28 foreign ministers – hastily rescheduled after Tillerson initially announced he would skip it in favor of a meeting with China’s leader – came amid fears of U.S. commitment to the alliance following Trump’s calls to increase spending. Tillerson said he wanted NATO leaders to agree at a May summit to come up with concrete plans by the end of the year to meet budget guidelines.

“As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense expenditures,” Tillerson told the foreign ministers. “Allies must increase defense spending.”

The effort came after resistance from German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who said that the push from Washington was unrealistic and based on a mistaken interpretation of the spending targets, which are not binding. Germany is NATO’s largest economy after the United States, but it lags far behind in its defense spending. Twisting Berlin’s arm to increase its military efforts is key to Trump’s effort to pass some of Europe’s defense burdens back to U.S. partners.

“More money doesn’t mean more security,” said Gabriel, who is a member of Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party and has long been skeptical of defense spending increases. He said that to expect Germany to reach NATO spending guidelines would require an additional $37 billion a year and was “totally unrealistic.” NATO leaders have pledged to increase annual defense outlays to two percent of their gross domestic products by 2024, but the targets were not requirements.

After Trump met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in mid-March, he wrote on Twitter that “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic allies, who rule in a coalition with Gabriel’s center-left party, have been more willing than Gabriel to entertain Trump’s requests. Defense increases are broadly unpopular in Germany ahead of September elections, and some of Gabriel’s aggressive push was for domestic consumption. But he rejected out of hand Tillerson’s proposal that nations create spending plans with specific, year-by-year targets, setting up a showdown for the May summit.

NATO diplomats said that the closed-door meetings with Tillerson were cordial. But some quietly criticized him for spending less than five hours on the ground in Brussels before returning to the United States before the meetings fully finished. Previous secretaries of state have often given news conferences at the end of such conclaves; Tillerson took no questions in Brussels.

Many diplomats counted it as a victory to have convinced Tillerson to come in the first place. The gathering was initially scheduled for next week, overlapping with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Florida to meet Trump. Tillerson planned to skip the NATO event, meaning that he would have met with Chinese and Russian leaders before he met with his alliance counterparts.

“Going to Moscow before seeing members of the alliance did not go down well,” a senior NATO diplomat said ahead of the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk frankly about allied perceptions of the Trump administration.

Tillerson also repeated U.S. desires for NATO to do more to fight terrorism, but he offered no concrete requests and said that the Trump administration was still working on specific roles in which NATO could do more. Although NATO has increased training for Iraqi troops and offered its AWACS surveillance planes to help efforts to defeat the Islamic State, many alliance nations remain skeptical that NATO’s structures are well-suited for counterterrorism.

Skeptical diplomats say that the intelligence agencies and police forces of individual NATO nations are better-adapted to fighting domestic terrorism threats. Direct intervention on the ground in Syria and Iraq may be most effective if countries offer their militaries on an individual basis rather than in a joint effort through NATO structures, they say. </s> Image copyright Getty Images Image caption German troops are currently deployed in Mali to help the government fight rebels

Calls by the Trump administration for Germany and other Nato partners to increase spending on defence have been rejected by Germany.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was "quite unrealistic" to believe Germany would spend 2% of its economic output on the military.

Other spending such as development aid, he said, should be taken into account.

However, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg echoed US calls for member states to pay an equal proportion.

"Diplomacy, development aid, economic co-operation can be important to help stabilise a region," Mr Stoltenberg told a news conference after Nato talks in Brussels.

"We have international targets, guidelines, for development aid, 0.7% of GDP [gross domestic product], and then we have a Nato agreement on moving towards 2%. But those are two different things... It is not either development or security, it is development and security."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told his counterparts in Brussels that by the next Nato summit - to be held in Brussels in less than eight weeks' time - there should be a commitment to produce clear plans to demonstrate how each country would meet its spending commitments.

"As President [Donald] Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of Nato's defence expenditures," he said.

According to Nato's 2016 annual report, only five countries met the 2% target - the US, the UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia. By contrast, Germany spent 1.2% on defence.

However, according to latest OECD available figures based on gross national income, Germany spent more in relative terms on overseas development aid in 2015 than the US - 0.52% of GNI compared with 0.17% for America.

'Russia's aggression'

The meeting of Nato foreign ministers, originally scheduled for next week, was brought forward to suit Mr Tillerson's schedule.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Rex Tillerson (L) met Ukraine's foreign minister

The US secretary of state told Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who was also at the meeting, that American and Nato support for Ukraine remained "steadfast" after "Russia's aggression against Ukraine" three years ago, when it annexed Crimea.

"Today, Russia's ongoing hostility and occupation is compromising our shared vision of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace," Mr Tillerson said.

Russia's foreign ministry responded in a statement (in Russian) by accusing Nato of spreading "the myth of a 'Russian threat'" and "the slander of 'Russian aggression'".

"The US and its allies are obsessed with building up their military presence on our borders, justifying it with the need to 'restrain Russia'," the Russian ministry said.

During Mr Tillerson's congressional confirmation hearings this year, opponents of his nomination expressed fears that the former head of Exxon Mobil would be too close to Russia, having had good relations with President Vladimir Putin.

Rex Tillerson - the wild card diplomat </s> BRUSSELS, March 31 (Reuters) - Germany said on Friday that NATO's agreed target spend of two percent of members' yearly economic output was neither "reachable nor desirable" countering a call by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for all allies to comply and quickly.

The United States provides nearly 70 percent of NATO's budget and is demanding that NATO allies make clear progress towards the agreed target this year. Only four European NATO members - Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain - have done so.

"Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don't know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable," Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the first NATO meeting attended by Tillerson.

Tillerson, however, reiterated Washington's demands and said allies will need to pay up or outline plans for how they plan to meet the threshold when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance. U.S. President Donald Trump will attend that meeting.

"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how...the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson said.

"Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment."

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defence spending and would continue to do so "because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces".

Members have until 2024 to comply with the spending target.

Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington's commitment to NATO during his brief stop in Brussels, although U.S. officials said he did not have time for one-on-one meetings, which are customary during such meetings.

Trump has criticised NATO as "obsolete" and suggested Washington's security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defence. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

"The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense," Tillerson said at the meeting in Brussels. "We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies."

Tillerson said the NATO alliance was fundamental to countering Russian aggression, in particular in Ukraine. A meeting on Thursday between ambassadors from NATO and Russia called on Moscow to do more to rein in armed separatists battling Kiev's forces.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were "rock solid".

He said the ministers would discuss "fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong" and "stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism".

Stoltenberg confirmed ministers would discuss national defence spending plans on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic, which has galvanised European NATO allies.

Though Washington offered reassurances, Tillerson's initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers had reopened questions about the Trump administration's commitment to the alliance. The meeting was later rescheduled. (Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland) </s> President Donald Trump has reiterated his promise to slap additional tariffs on China if a trade deal is not reached, saying that he was "happy" with things as they are and that China needed the deal more than the US did since its economy was hit hard by the existing restrictions.

"I would do additional tariffs, very substantial additional tariffs, if that doesn't work, if we don't make a deal," Trump said. "China's economy is going down the tubes - they want to make a deal," he stressed, speaking to Fox News Business on Wednesday morning.

The president said that the US could hold off on fresh tariffs if a deal is reached at the G20 meeting. The new tariffs could amount to a 10 percent tax on all Chinese imports into the United States, rather than the 25 percent figure mentioned earlier, Trump clarified.

Trump confirmed that the US side has been talking to its Chinese counterparts on the trade issue over the past few days.

According to the president, it was 'okay' with him if the US-China trade tensions impacted the world oil market.

In the interview, Trump also took a shot at Vietnam, another major US trade partner, saying US negotiators have been talking to Vietnamese officials over Hanoi's approach to trade with the US, which Trump said is even 'worse than China.'

The US and China were thrust into a tit-for-tat tariff spat in mid-2018, when the Trump administration slapped a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. Since then, the economic superpowers hit one another with several more rounds of tariffs, with Trump recently threatening to put import duties on the remaining estimated $300 billion of Chinese goods coming to the US unless a deal can be worked out. At a campaign rally last week, Trump promised that the US would hammer out a fair trade deal with Beijing or walk away completely.

Turning to the subject of NATO defence, the US president accused Germany of being "delinquent" on its NATO defence spending obligations while spending "billions and billions" on Russian energy.

"So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay?" Trump said. "So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent, okay?" he added.

Trump has repeatedly accused Germany and other NATO countries of failing to pay their fair share for the alliance and commit to the 2 percent of GDP defence spending figures outlined by the alliance. Germany's defence budget for 2019 is expected to amount to $49 billion, or about 1.2 percent of the country's GDP. </s> Rex Tillerson, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil, testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing to become U.S. Secretary of State on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 11, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reassured his nervous European counterparts over Washington’s commitment to NATO on Friday and pressed them again to spend more on defense, triggering a rebuke from Germany.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was neither “reachable nor desirable” for Germany to spend the agreed NATO target of two percent of member states’ economic output on defense. NATO allies have until 2024 to do that.

“Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don’t know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable,” Gabriel told the first meeting of NATO foreign ministers attended by Tillerson.

“The United States will realize it is better to talk about better spending instead of more spending,” he said, noting that humanitarian, development and economic aid to stabilize countries and regions should also count.

In his first remarks to NATO ministers, Tillerson said allies needed to pay up or outline plans for meeting that target when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance to be attended by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and suggested Washington’s security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

“Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how…the pledge will be fulfilled,” Tillerson said.

“Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. government’s commitment.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so “because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces”.

U.S. defense expenditure makes up about 70 percent of the total NATO allies’ defense spending. Only four European NATO members – Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain – meet the two-percent target.

NATO head Jens Stoltenberg rejected Gabriel’s call to include non-military spending toward the goal, but said Germany was moving “in the right direction” with more military spending after years of cuts.

He said NATO ministers on Friday discussed national plans for arriving at the target as they prepared for the May summit.

In London, Britain’s Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that other European NATO allies must “raise their game, and those failing to meet the two-percent commitment… should at least agree to year-on-year real terms increases.”

Tillerson did, however, offer assurances of Washington’s commitment to NATO during his brief stop in Brussels, where he did not hold one-on-one meetings with countries, which is customary during such gatherings.

His initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers had added to questions about the Trump administration’s commitment. The meeting was later rescheduled and he attended on Friday.

“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson said. “We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”

Tillerson said NATO was fundamental to countering Russian aggression in Ukraine and said the United States would hold Moscow accountable to its commitments under a two-year Minsk ceasefire deal. He pledged to keep sanctions in place against Moscow until it complies with the Minsk agreement.

Trump has said in the past that, as part of a rapprochement he is seeking with Russia, he is prepared to review the sanctions, which were imposed by Barack Obama over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula.

“We do not, and will not, accept Russian efforts to change the borders of territory of Ukraine,” Tillerson said according to a transcript of his remarks.

“The United States sanctions will remain until Moscow reverses the actions that triggered our sanctions,” he added, expressing alarm at a surge in violence along the front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were “rock solid”.

He said “fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong” and “stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism” were on the agenda on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic. </s> US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that China wants a trade deal with the United States because its economy is weakening.

"China's economy is going down the tubes -- they want to make a deal," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business News.

He also charged that Germany is "delinquent" in its contributions to NATO, accusing the US ally of stinting on defense while it pays Russia billions of dollars for energy.

"So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay," he said in the interview.

"So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! okay?" he said.

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U.S. President Donald Trump states that Germany is "delinquent" on NATO defense, saying, "So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! Okay?" (Al Arabiya)