White House denies handing Merkel a bill for NATO defense
Lewis Sanders IV
March 27, 2017
Media reports have claimed that US President Donald Trump handed Germany's chancellor a NATO defense invoice for more than $300 million. But the White House has dismissed the claims as false.
Image: Reuters/J. Bourg
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US President Donald Trump handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a bill for more than $300 million (277.6 million euros) for Berlin's failure to meet NATO's defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP, British newspaper "The Sunday Times" reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed German government official.
The same official told the British newspaper that Merkel had not responded to the invoice.
"The concept behind putting out such demands is to intimidate the other side, but the chancellor took it calmly and will not respond to such provocations," the official said.
White House spokesman Michael Short denied the incident occurred, telling US broadcaster CNBC and other media outlets that the report was "false."
Trump reportedly requested White House aides to calculate the amount by totaling the difference between Berlin's defense spending and NATO's 2 percent of GDP target from 2002, when former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder pledged to increase defense expenditure.
The "owed" amount allegedly included interest for failure to meet the target.
Trump has claimed that NATO countries rely on US defense to protect them, and that Washington is effectively owed for this protection. But US allies in NATO have insisted that's not how the transatlantic alliance works.
'No account where debts are registered'
In the wake of Merkel's official visit to the US, Trump argued forcefully that Germany owed vast amounts to Washington for its protection.
"Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany," the US president said in two tweets.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement in the wake of Trump's allegations, saying: "There is no account where debts are registered with NATO."
Meanwhile, Germany is the second-largest funder of NATO's civil and military budgets, comprising nearly 14 percent of common-sharing budgets and programs in the alliance.
The UK and France trail behind Washington and Berlin, providing 10.6 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively.
Germany's NATO missions
Since West Germany's accession to NATO, Berlin has supported numerous operations involving the trans-Atlantic alliance. Since 1990, Germany's Bundeswehr has been deployed on "out of area" missions as well.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Hanschke
Germany's role in NATO
West Germany officially joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1955. However, it wasn't until after reunification in 1990 that the German government considered "out of area" missions led by NATO. From peacekeeping to deterrence, Germany's Bundeswehr has since been deployed in several countries across the globe in defense of its allies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Hanschke
Bosnia: Germany's first NATO mission
In 1995, Germany participated in its first "out of area" NATO mission as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the deployment, German soldiers joined other NATO member forces to provide security in the wake of the Bosnian War. The peacekeeping mission included more than 60,000 troops from NATO's member states and partners.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/H. Delic
Keeping the peace in Kosovo
Since the beginning of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, some 8,500 German soldiers have been deployed in the young country. In 1999, NATO launched an air assault against Serbian forces accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and their civilian supporters. Approximately 550 Bundeswehr troops are still stationed in Kosovo.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/V.Xhemaj
Patrolling the Aegean Sea
In 2016, Germany deployed its combat support ship "Bonn" to lead a NATO mission backed by the EU in the Aegean Sea. The mission included conducting "reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings" in Greek and Turkish territorial waters at the height of the migration crisis. Germany, Greece and Turkey had requested assistance from the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/M.Schreiber
Nearly two decades in Afghanistan
In 2003, Germany's parliament voted to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Germany became the third-largest contributor of troops and led the Regional Command North. More than 50 German troops were killed during the mission. Germany withdrew the last of its troops in June 2021 as part of the US-led exit from Afghanistan.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/A.Niedringhaus
German tanks in Lithuania
Forming part of NATO's "enhanced forward presence" in the Baltic states, 450 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania since 2017. The battalion-size battlegroups there are led by Germany, Canada, the UK and US to reinforce collective defense on the alliance's eastern flank. It forms the "biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defense in a generation," according to NATO.