Trump hits out at NATO and Merkel

In two separate interviews with Germany’s Bild and London’s Sunday Times, Donald Trump came out of his corner fighting, with far-reaching policy and strategy announcements hitting out at NATO and Merkel.

Trump told the Times many countries are certain to leave the European Union, as a result of the damage wrought by the migration crisis. “I think it’s very tough,” he said. “People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity.”

Trump called NATO obsolete, and predicted that other European Union members would exit the Union.

He also discussed his stance on Russia and suggested he might use economic sanctions imposed for Vladimir Putin as leverage in nuclear-arms reduction talks, while NATO, he said, “has problems”.

“[NATO] is obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” Bild quoted Trump as saying. “Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should” and NATO “didn’t deal with terrorism”.

But he reserved some of his most dismissive remarks for the EU and Merkel, whose open-border refugee policy he called a “catastrophic mistake”. He described the EU as an instrument of German domination with the purpose of beating the US in international trade. For that reason, Trump said, he would be indifferent to countries exiting according to Bild.

With Merkel facing an unprecedented challenge from the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany as she seeks a fourth term this year, Trump remarked that she has hurt Germany by letting “all these illegals” into the country.

Bloomberg reported that Trump’s comments “leave little doubt that he will stick to campaign positions and may in some cases upend decades of US foreign policy, putting him fundamentally at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on issues from free trade and refugees to security and the EU’s role in the world.”

When asked about the prospect of a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia, Trump told the newspaper: “For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it.”

The new American president said he would offer Britain “fair” trade deal with America within weeks of taking office to help make Brexit a “great thing”. He praised Britons for voting last year to leave the EU. People and countries want their own identity and don’t want outsiders to come in and “destroy it” he said.

According to the Sunday interview granted to Germany’s Bild newspaper, the president-elect threatened German car maker BMW with import duties over a planned plant in Mexico.

Trump suggested that BMW should build its new car factory in the United States because this would be “much better” for the company than being in Mexico. While Mercedes Benz cars were a frequent sight in New York, there was no reciprocity. Germans are not buying Chevrolets, he said.