The president was mild. That was a successful NATO summit, says Donald Trump. Angela Merkel, sitting next to him, nods affirmatively: "A very successful meeting."
When the two sat together, the last hurdle had not yet been taken. The Chancellor and the US President came together for an exchange of ideas in a small circle. Here, Wednesday afternoon, everyone could still go wrong. A bad word from Trump, a small nod against German car imports or Trump's view of low German defense spending, and the "successful summit" would end like the last NATO meeting before: in an open dispute that even the most beautiful final statement can not cover up ,
Merkel and Trump are sitting in a conference room at the golf hotel just outside London, while the US President is the one who parries the reporters' questions. This time Trump does not get carried away by an attack.
- Sanctions against the controversial, supported by the Federal Government gas pipeline Nord Stream 2? This must solve Germany itself, he says - and threatens not with punitive actions.
- The trade war, the punitive tariffs on German cars? Again, not a new threat, instead Trump says: "I think we will solve it, we want fairness in trade and not just with the EU, but with many countries." Rates that are likely to trigger relief in the German car industry.
- Even with the German defense spending, the perennial favorite of Trump's criticism, the president suddenly does not reckon more closely. "Germany is a bit below the limit," he says. "We'll talk about it now."
"Solve", "talk about it" - Trump's mouth sounds almost like a declaration of love. In any case, these are not actually words that you normally hear on Trump's Nato visits. At the last Nato summit in Brussels in 2018, for example, he even quarreled before breakfast with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg against the Germans, who failed to meet the target of spending two percent of the gross domestic product on defense and then also bought gas from NATO opponents Russia ,
And today? Sure, Trump talks in detail, wants to underline its importance, there is no new modesty. But he avoids the big noise. He wants to sell the increase in defense spending in NATO as his success. But then he can not explain the organization at the same time superfluous, which also understands Trump. It does not fit in there when people like French President Emmanuel Macron talk bad about the alliance.
Macron: "On some topics Russia is a threat"
Macron defends the debate he initiated after the meeting. "If there's ice, you need an icebreaker," he says. "Things used to be easy, but the situation has changed over the past 30 years." On Tuesday he talked for a long time with Merkel about a better coordination between France and Germany, says Macron.
He makes no secret of his criticism of the tough attitude of NATO and the EU towards Russia. "Russia is a threat on some issues," he says. But Russia is also neighbor and partner.
Merkel, however, is beating another pitch this Wednesday. In the morning, Germany expelled two Russian intelligence agents because Russia had not helped enough to clarify the murder of a Georgian. "In the bilateral relations, it is already an event that we have received no active help from Russia in the elucidation of this process," says the Chancellor after the summit.
Another press conference? What for?
Trump renounced a graduation press conference. He seemed to have talked enough. He extended his introductory statement with journalists to more than 50 minutes before breakfasting with Stoltenberg, and spoke for 40 minutes on the sidelines of a meeting with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Even before his meeting with Merkel Trump took almost ten minutes for questions.
At the reception on Tuesday evening, Trudeau joked with France's President Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about Trump's ad hoc press conferences. They overlooked that a camera recorded their blasphemies.
Video: Heads of state joke apparently about Trump
REUTERS
Trump called Trudeau "double-tongued," but then remembered he did not want any noise in London and added quickly, "He's a nice guy, I criticized him for not paying the two percent, I'm sure he is not happy about it, but that's the way it is. "
General Secretary Stoltenberg is almost the marginal figure at the end of the summit. Usually, he shares the results at the end of the NATO summit, assessing the mood in the Alliance. Heads of state such as Macron or Trump, who push themselves into the foreground and give press conferences before and during the meetings, are increasingly stifling into the background.
Nevertheless, the NATO boss does not show anything on the open stage. He rattles down the successes of the meeting, praises the increased defense spending of the European partners and the commitment to the duty of assistance. But he can not resist a little ironic joke. "The rhetoric at NATO is not always perfect," he says, "but in the end, luckily only the results count."
The role of Turkey will remain in unhappy memory. Until shortly before the end of the meeting, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blocked the decision of a defense plan for Eastern Europe and in return demanded that NATO classify the Kurdish militia YPG as a terrorist organization. For Erdogan, the militia is an arm of the PKK, but for most NATO partners, it is considered an ally in the fight against the "Islamic State" (IS).
The maneuver was audacious, some NATO diplomats spoke in London of a blackmail attempt. Chancellor Merkel may have recalled scenes in which Erdogan threatens a new wave of refugees to get more aid from the EU. How long you can still cooperate with such a partner will be one of the most important questions for the coming years. So far no one has an answer to this at NATO.