Article written by Abdelhak Azzouzi
CAIRO, Nov. 15 (SEE) - Seven decades passed since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a treaty which was inked among the United States, Canada, and 10 European countries.
The biggest and strongest military alliance in the world obligates the member states to have to agree on mutual defense in response to an attack against one of them from an external party.
NATO member states always hold summits; latest of them in July was misty, when US President Donald Trump lashed out at Germany, saying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project - an energy pipeline between Germany and Russia - is "inappropriate."
Also, Trump urged NATO allies to pay 2% of GDP by 2025, a matter which all the members agreed on before. But some NATO states like Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Canada still pay below 1.4% of GDP, that could be a prelude to their incapability to fulfill their obligations. Trump will get angrier.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit back against Trump's statements saying "we can say that we can make our independent policies and make independent decisions."
And again Trump repeats his call before his arrival in Paris to attend the WW1 Armistice Centennial, commenting on French President Emmanuel Macron’s call to build up Europe’s military “insulting.”
But Trump, at the Elysee in a meeting with Macron, clarified that he wanted to “make Europe great again," urging the European partners to share with the US the burden.
It is obvious that Trump is vulnerable to the European defense matter. In the meantime, Macron spares no effort to defend the European Union as a bloc because of its ongoing crises such as the economic situations of the member states and elections fever in these countries where the political actors cautiously talk about the expenses of joint European defense.
At the same time, Belgium doesn't care with the European strategic interests by possessing US F-35 jets at the expense of France's Rafale fighter jets, a matter which made Macron say, during his visit to Slovakia, "It’s a decision that was the result of a process which I greatly respect and which was linked to political constraints specific to Belgium, which are not for me to comment upon, but strategically it goes against European interests.”
It seems that Macron dreams about a new international system with real European sovereignty, but this vision nowadays is hard to be implemented in terms of the spread of "My Country's interest First" idea which is quoted from Trump's "America First."
The Trump administration knows very well that Europe can't let go of the United States, as Europe is obligated to increase its funding in the NATO, which is hard or to buy US military weapons like Belgium and that is Trump seeks.
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