Donald Trump has launched a blistering attack on Germany as he stepped up demands for Nato allies to contribute more to their collective defence.
Arriving in Brussels for a two-day alliance summit, the US president said it was “totally inappropriate” that Germany was paying billions of dollars to Russia for oil and gas while spending little over 1% of its GDP on defence.
He said that the deal meant that Germany was now “totally controlled” by Moscow.
“I think it is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia. We are supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions dollars a year to Russia,” he said.
“We are protecting Germany, we are protecting France, we are protecting all of these countries and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they are paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. I think that is very inappropriate.
“It should never have been allowed to happen. Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting 60 to 70% of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.
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“You tell me if that’s appropriate because I think it’s not. On top of that Germany is just paying just a little bit over 1% whereas the United States is paying 4.2% of a much larger GDP. So I think that’s inappropriate also.”
