For Theresa May, the most worrying part of Donald Trump’s talks with Kim Jong-un came two days before the two men met. The US President had arrived in Singapore early after escaping the G7 summit in Canada, still sore at being upbraided by his European and Canadian counterparts about tariffs. With time on his hands, he took to Twitter to hit back by switching the conversation to defence and one of his favourite bugbears: Nato.
‘Germany pays 1 per cent (slowly) of GDP towards Nato, while we pay 4 per cent of a MUCH larger GDP,’ he announced. ‘The US pays close to the entire cost of Nato-protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost-and laugh!)’. This situation, he said, would soon end. ‘Change is coming!’
This was, for once, an understatement. The future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation looks shakier now than perhaps at any time since its inception in 1949. Six of the G7 are in Nato, and the US spends more on defence than its 28 other members together. But the alliance only works when its members can present a united front: hard to do when the US President routinely describes Nato as a scam and openly muses about leaving its members to fend for themselves. Without faith in Nato, there is no Nato.
This is precisely why there is such concern in London. Before the G7 summit, Theresa May briefed her ministerial colleagues about the seriousness of the situation — and how the row over tariffs might turn into a full-blown security crisis. The G7 is supposed to be a forum through which Britain, America and Europe deal with China, she said, but this no longer worked because Trump thinks he can handle China all by himself.
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