Viral Flashback: Trump Objects To Russia-Germany Pipeline Deal In 2018

In a 2018 moment that has gone viral on Twitter since the Russian invasion of Ukraine this week, then-President Trump complained to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that Germany’s gas pipeline deal with Russia had made it “captive of Russia” while the US was expected to pay for NATO defenses in defense of Germany.

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The thing is that it really has its your message is having an impact and we are going to build on that to make sure that we have further increases you initiated last year that all allies are going to develop national plans on how to spend more on the fence and based on these

National plans we now estimate that the european allies and canada will add 266 extra us dollars for defense from now until 20 billion u.s dollars until uh until 2024 so so this is really adding some extra money it helps uh and we are moving in the right direction but we still

But we still have to to do more and that is what we’re going to address at the summit later on today let me also that that strong nato is good for europe but it’s also good for united states the u.s military presence in europe helps to protect europe but it also helps the

United states project power to the middle east to africa and i think also that out the military cloud of uh of europe uh the economic cloud the political cloud also is helpful dealing with uh with russia and we look forward to the meeting we’re going to have with

President putin and i think that leaders are also looking forward to your thoughts about the meeting with president putin later on well i have to say i think it’s very sad when germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with russia where you’re supposed to be guarding

Against russia and germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to russia so we’re protecting germany we’re protecting france we’re protecting all of these countries and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with russia where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of

Russia so we’re supposed to protect you against russia but they’re paying billions of dollars to russia and i think that’s very inappropriate and the former chancellor of germany is the head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas ultimately germany will have almost 70 percent of their country controlled by

Russia with natural gas so you tell me is that appropriate i mean i’ve been complaining about this from the time i got it it should have never been allowed to have happened but germany is totally controlled by russia because they were getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy

From russia and a new pipeline and you tell me if that’s appropriate because i think it’s not and i think it’s a very bad thing for nato and i don’t think it should have happened and i think we have to talk to germany about it on top of that

Germany is just paying a little bit over one percent whereas the united states in actual numbers is paying 4.2 percent of a much larger gdp so i think that’s inappropriate also you know we’re protecting germany we’re protecting france we’re protecting everybody and yet we’re paying a lot of money to

Protect now this has been going on for decades this has been brought up by other presidents but other presidents never did anything about it because i don’t think they understood it or they just didn’t want to get involved but i have to bring it up because i

Think it’s very unfair to our country it’s very unfair to a taxpayer and i think that these countries have to step it up not over a 10-year period you have to step it up immediately germany is a rich country they talk about they’re going to increase it a tiny bit by 2030.

Well they could increase it immediately tomorrow and have no problem i don’t think it’s fair to the united states so we’re gonna have to do something because we’re not gonna put up with it we can’t put up with it and it’s inappropriate so we have to talk about the billions and

Billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country that we’re supposed to be protecting you against you know everybody’s everybody’s talking about it all over the world they’ll say well wait a minute we’re supposed to be protecting you from russia but why are you paying billions of dollars

To russia for energy why are countries in nato namely germany having a large percentage of the energy needs paid you know to russia and taken care of by russia now if you look at it germany is a captive of russia because they supply they got rid of their coal

Plants they got rid of their nuclear they’re getting so much of the oil and gas from russia i think it’s something that nato has to look at i think it’s very inappropriate you and i agree that it’s inappropriate i don’t know what you can do about it now but it certainly

Doesn’t seem to make sense that they paid billions of dollars to russia and now we have to defend them against russia the