EU/MILITARY/NATO/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “He flew across the ocean to celebrate NATO’s 70th anniversary with the largest and most important member of the military alliance. So to outsiders it appeared to be an awkward moment on Tuesday [4-2-19] for Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, as he sat stiffly by while President Trump criticized German defense spending and predicted that the United States would get along with Russia…He said the president had helped push member states to budget an additional $100 billion in defense spending and credited Mr. Trump with ‘having a real impact’…But not all. Germany will most likely slow the growth of its defense spending — meaning that Europe’s economic powerhouse will defy a spending target set by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And other member states are struggling to reach the current goal of spending 2 percent of their economic output on the military by the end of 2024.The scene on Tuesday was just the latest example of Mr. Stoltenberg’s unenviable efforts to bridge seemingly irreconcilable positions between Europe and the United States. He is the European leader who has shown the most deft hand with Mr. Trump.”
–Julian E. Barnes, “With Trump, NATO Chief Tries to Navigate Spending Minefields,” The New York Times online, April 2, 2019