Memories of Germany’s Nazi past during its “period of national socialism” should no longer bar the country from engaging as a key player in western foreign policy, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday at the White House.
“Step-by-step, we will simply have to increase our contribution,” Merkel said through a translator during a joint press conference with President Trump. “So in a way, we’re maturing, we’re growing out of a role where after the Second World War people were rather happy for Germany not becoming too engaged, not too active, because during the period of national socialism, we created such incredible injustice in the world.”
Trump has demanded that all members of the NATO alliance to increase their defense spending, in compliance with a 2014 agreement that each state would spend an amount equivalent to two percent of GDP on military capabilities. Germany — the largest economy in Europe, yet fielding a military plagued by equipment shortages — has been a focal point of that pressure.
“They should meet the goals that they agreed to,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier Friday at a NATO summit in Brussels, after giving a blunt “no” when asked if Germany is doing enough to increase military spending. “It’s the expectation not only for Germany but for everyone who signed up for that agreement. So we’re hopeful that at the summit every NATO partner will deliver a credible plan to achieve that goal. That’s what they signed up for. That’s our expectation for July.”
Merkel announced Germany will spend 1.3 percent of GDP on defense in 2019, an uptick from 1.2 percent spent in 2018. “We haven’t yet met the target where we should be, but we are getting closer,” she said.
Other officials have resisted Trump’s emphasis on military spending, saying that Germany’s soft-power spending should be taken into account. “Germany spends 30 to 40 billion euros on supporting refugees because of military interventions years ago that went wrong,” then-Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in 2017. “This should be considered a contribution to stabilization.”
Pompeo made clear that NATO requires a hard-power upgrade. “[A]ll NATO allies agreed to increase defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024 with 20 percent of that share devoted to funding major equipment,” he said Friday. “It’s now up to each ally to make good on that promise by presenting a credible plan before the summit in July.”
The fulfillment of that pledge would see Germany’s defense spending rise from about $45 billion to roughly $87 billion, or 72 billion euros. That would be a dramatic shift for European politics — in which Germany has taken a pacifist role in recent decades — that would take place even as the United Kingdom proceeds with a divorce from the EU.
Merkel, acknowledging pressure from Trump, emphasized that Germany also will expand its role in international diplomacy. And that will take some adjusting to, both for rivals-turned-allies and the German people themselves.
“This post-war period is at an end,” she said. “So we, as Germans, have to learn to assume more responsibility.”
