There are millions of stupid leftist tweets and probably thousands of stupid memes floating around on Facebook. Why select this one? I don't intend to make my blog s libertarian Snopes The bookend bullet points are clearly related to the current Ukraine crisis. The others are, at best, a stretch.
Point #5 is trivial and likely false. I had to query about the incident. After hosting the World Cup, Putin in mid-2018 gave Trump a soccer ball at a summit. Adidas had embedded a chip in a similarly marked soccer box pushing promotional data to cellphones. There was some speculation that the ball might have an electronic bugging device planted that might be used to eavesdrop on conversations in the Oval Office. The Secret Service says that it routinely screens gifts for security reasons. Trump said he planned to give it to his youngest son, a minor who has played the sport. I didn't see any confirmation that the ball had a chip.
There has been a lot of paranoid speculation, especially in the post-2016 leftist Twitter universe, about Trump's meetings with Putin. Did Trump unilaterally concede Ukrainian territory to Putin?, etc. Yes, Trump was obsessed with leaks to the press. But there are limits to a President's foreign relations authority, including Senate ratification of treaties.
But let's start with the accusation that Trump wanted out of NATO. The reality is that Trump felt that a disproportionate amount of costs (nearly a quarter) was funded by the US, which was unsustainable:
Charles Lane, Washington Post, March 21: So, I’d like to hear you say very specifically, you know, with respect to NATO
Trump: No, I don’t want to pull it out...NATO was set up when we were a richer country. We’re not a rich country anymore... NATO is costing us a fortune and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO but we’re spending a lot of money...I think NATO as a concept is good
...
Trump: Well, they may not be happy but, you know, they have to help us also. It has to be — we are paying disproportionately. And very importantly if you use Ukraine as an example and that’s a great example, the country surrounding Ukraine, I mean, they don’t seem to care as much about it as we do. So there has to be at least a change in philosophy and there are also has to be a change in the cut out, the money, the spread because it’s too much.
Blitzer: So you’re really suggesting the United States should decrease its role in NATO?
Trump: Not decrease its role but certainly decrease the kind of spending. We are spending a tremendous amount in NATO and other people proportionately less. No good.
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Trump, April 4: And the press, which is so totally dishonest, the press goes headlines the next day “Trump doesn’t want NATO, wants to disband.” That’s not what I said. I said you’ve got to pay your bills. And you know what? If they can’t pay their bills, honestly there should be — they’ve got to go.
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Trump, April 27: In NATO, for instance, only four of 28 other member countries besides America, are spending the minimum required 2 percent of GDP on defense.
So this leftist troll is simply repeating a false Hillary Clinton talking point. One could simply say that Trump is arguing moral hazard: most NATO countries get the protection of the US-led defense but are getting a free (or deeply subsidized) ride. These same talking points are basically repeated in the infamous phone call with Zelensky behind Trump's first impeachment.
Point #2 is misleading and false. It is true that Trump saw US troops based in Europe as one tactic he could use to pressure NATO allies to pay their 2+% "fair share" of defense spending. This was particularly true of Germany, where Trump wanted to draw down US troops by about a quarter. So, in a manner of speaking, troop levels were a negotiation tactic Trump used to pressure Germany to spend more on defense. The fact that Germany has the biggest economy in Western Europe and (at last glance) the world's second largest net exporter (which I think given Trump's dismay with our trade imbalances really gnawed at him) triggered Trump's order. What the above excerpts showed was that that Trump agreed NATO was good in concept, and he was willing to spend America's fair share. Any reductions were a tactic, not a goal.
Finally, point #6. This is not true. He, in fact, had signed Ukraine aid into law. He did temporarily freeze the aid, trying to pressure Zelensky into launching an investigation of Biden, but it was eventually released under Congressional pressure.
I have to shake my head every time a leftist troll provokes me, a consistent Never Trumper, into having to defend Trump. Speaking on behalf of most libertarians, we thought when Trump adopted the "America First" tagline, Trump would withdraw from wars, scale back our military footprint overseas, and streamline our international commitments. That never happened; he hired neo-cons into powerful positions and sharply increased the mammoth defense budget; the few times he tried to scale back, e.g., Syria, personnel were simply re-positioned in the region.
I recently wrote an essay on Ukraine opposing intervention, praising late Sen. Taft, who was a principled non-interventionist, opposing NATO and the UN, presciently opposing US involvement in Korea and Vietnam. To be honest, I almost wish the troll's claims were true. It's true that Trump sometimes talked the talk but didn't walk the walk.
