Former Secretary of State John Kerry condemned President Trump for his comments about Germany during the NATO summit Wednesday, calling them “disgraceful,” “destructive,” and counter to the interests of the U.S.
“President Trump makes public adversaries out of our friends, and turns our adversary, who has been attacking America’s democracy, into his fawned-over ally,” Kerry said in a statement posted to Twitter, referencing Russia.
He said he has “never seen a president say anything as strange or counterproductive” as Trump’s comments on NATO and Germany.
“The president set America back this morning. He is steadily destroying our reputation in the world. He is undermining our interests. He diminishes alliances we built to safeguard an economic and strategic force that has allowed millions of people to live in freedom,” Kerry said.
The president attended the first day of a NATO summit in Brussels on Wednesday and had strong words for Germany during a breakfast with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump accused Germany of being a “captive” of Russia because of its energy imports.
Trump then questioned how the alliance could “be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?”
The president has frequently criticized NATO members for failing to spend the alliance’s agreed upon 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, as the U.S. has done.
“This has been going on for decades,” Trump said during his breakfast with Stoltenberg. “This has been brought up by other presidents, but other presidents never did anything about it because I don’t think they understood it or they just didn’t want to get involved. But I have to bring it up because I think it’s very unfair to our country. It’s very unfair to our taxpayers.”
But Kerry shot back at Trump for accusing his predecessors of failing to pressure NATO members to boost their military spending, saying the president demonstrated a “woeful ignorance” of the Obama administration’s efforts.
“What was on display in Brussels today was not the behavior of a strong, principled, and wise leader. Enough. This isn’t good for the United States, and there are people across the aisle — as the Senate vote yesterday clearly showed — who know it and need to say it,” Kerry said.
Trump will continue meetings at the NATO summit Thursday before departing for London, the second stop of his seven-day Europe trip. The White House confirmed Wednesday that Trump is now suggesting that NATO allies double their military spending goal to 4 percent of their gross domestic product.
