There’s no appeasing a bully. He’ll come back for more if you give in. And now it seems whatever moronic idea born from his late night twitter mental diarrhea festivals, Ratte is gone eat up. Still, not surprising at all, Ratte was always a rat and a hypocrite
I don’t think this is appeasing a bully, this is actually giving him very little. Appeasement would have involved actually giving him something. The increase to 3.5% is back to around cold war levels, which seems very appropriate for the current geopolitical situation. The final 1.5% is essentially an accounting trick to make whatever expenses you like count towards the 5%, like road maintenance or technological R&D, it would be hard not to reach this target. Plus this money can now be increasingly spent on Europe’s own companies instead of sending 1-2% of yearly GDP straight to the US economy, especially once economies of scale start picking up.
This is just what Europe was planning to do on its own, but framing it in a way that strokes Trump’s ego and lets him claim it as his victory. Especially after a few years this will not be a positive change for the US. I’ll happily sacrifice Rutte’s pride if it means Europe gets exactly what it wanted.
There’s no appeasing a bully. He’ll come back for more if you give in. And now it seems whatever moronic idea born from his late night twitter mental diarrhea festivals, Ratte is gone eat up. Still, not surprising at all, Ratte was always a rat and a hypocrite
I don’t think this is appeasing a bully, this is actually giving him very little. Appeasement would have involved actually giving him something. The increase to 3.5% is back to around cold war levels, which seems very appropriate for the current geopolitical situation. The final 1.5% is essentially an accounting trick to make whatever expenses you like count towards the 5%, like road maintenance or technological R&D, it would be hard not to reach this target. Plus this money can now be increasingly spent on Europe’s own companies instead of sending 1-2% of yearly GDP straight to the US economy, especially once economies of scale start picking up.
This is just what Europe was planning to do on its own, but framing it in a way that strokes Trump’s ego and lets him claim it as his victory. Especially after a few years this will not be a positive change for the US. I’ll happily sacrifice Rutte’s pride if it means Europe gets exactly what it wanted.