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    Trump Has Learned Nothing

    The president's waffling on Russian interference was part of a weeklong meltdown—a summer tradition that started during his campaign.
    by David A. Graham Jul 18, 2018 7 minutes
    Source: Andrew Harnik / AP

    Bill Clinton and Barack Obama liked to go to Martha’s Vineyard. George W. Bush repaired to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Donald Trump has already cultivated his own summer tradition: the catastrophic, week-long meltdown.

    This summer’s edition started Thursday, when Trump departed the NATO summit in Brussels, leaving behind a trail of chaos. It could have been worse: Headed into the summit, some analysts were worried he’d blow the alliance up altogether. But that doesn’t mean it went well.

    Ahead of the summit, Trump launched a scathing Twitter attack against Germany for purchasing gas and oil from Russia, arguing, in his classic I’m-rubber-you’re-glue fashion, that Berlin is compromised. Trump falsely claimed that he’d forced members to spend more, when their commitment to spending 2 percent of GDP on defense dates to 2014. He demanded NATO double that commitment to 4 percent, rattling allies and sending the Pentagon scrambling to reassure them. The outreach didn’t really help. Although Trump claimed that “we … have a very, very powerful, very, very strong NATO, much stronger than it was two days ago,” other members didn’t feel the same way. Germany’s foreign minister even said that the United States was no longer a fully reliable ally.

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