Democrats and liberal media pundits have desperately tried to blame former President Donald Trump for the situation unfolding in Ukraine, pushing the narrative that Trump was somehow allied with Vladimir Putin or didn’t do enough to prevent the dictator’s future actions.
However, as The Daily Wire pointed out, Trump made a number of moves to keep Putin in his place, and in 2018, he torched the German government for getting into bed with Russia on the energy front, a fact that Democrats and their media allies conveniently fail to note.
Trump made headlines during the 2018 NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels, Belgium, where he took NATO officials to task over making energy deals with Putin, which only served to further enrich the Russian dictator and his oligarch friends, while at the same time America was funding the protection of European countries like Germany from Russia.
The fiery exchange at the time happened between Trump and then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“It’s very sad”
In true Trump fashion, the former president held nothing back as he excoriated the NATO nation, while being filmed, for making energy deals with Russia that only served to fatten Putin’s already-vast oil and gas coffers.
“I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” Trump said at the time.
He added: “So, we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries, and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia.”
“Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they … got rid of their coal plants, they got rid of their nuclear, they’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia, I think it’s something that NATO has to look at,” the former president continued.
While NATO leaders insisted that the countries within the pact were “stronger together,” even with some differing opinions, Trump countered by essentially pointing out the idiocy of one of the member nations paying vast sums of money to Russia, which is one of the countries from which they’re supposed to protect each other.
Germany changes course
In a shocking development over the weekend, Germany appears to have drastically shifted its initial hesitancy in countering Russia, as CNBC reported that the nation announced it would soon send “1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles” to the Ukrainian military to bolster its defensive capabilities.
The country also significantly bolstered its defense spending by some $112 billion, which comes on the heels of former President Trump slamming the nation’s government for not fulfilling its obligations to NATO and other defense pacts.
While the change in posture was celebrated by some, others continue to charge that Germany’s new position is far too late, as the damage has already been done.
