President Donald Trump opened his bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Jans Stoltenberg with a swipe at the media.
“Good morning, everybody,” Trump said in his opening remarks. “Good morning to the media — the legitimate media and the fake-news media. Good morning to them. A lot of good people here. Surprising.”
The president’s combative tone endured throughout the meeting while he lambasted NATO countries and German allies.
“Many countries are not paying what they should, and frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back,” Trump continued during the meeting. “They’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them.”
Trump then launched into criticism of Germany, saying, “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.”
“Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline. And you tell me if that’s appropriate … 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,” he continued.