Picking battles with trade partners or even foreign companies that hold facilities within our borders a spark to the powder keg known as Wall Street and when I say spark I don’t mean the good kind – PB/TK
Germans perplexed as Trump escalates feud – / May 30 2017
LONDON — President Trump escalated his feud with Berlin on Tuesday, even as Germany’s leader and Trump’s own spokesman tried to defuse the conflict, which has sent tremors through Washington’s core postwar alliances.
Before the presidential tweets began flying early Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed the importance of Germany’s ties to the United States. But she pointedly did not back down from earlier comments about Europe’s need to rely on itself rather than its friends.
The dispute started as Trump sped through meetings in Europe last week and appeared to leave a trail of bruises in his wake. It heated up after Merkel did little over the weekend to hide her disappointment with Trump’s refusal to commit Washington to the climate change treaty. And it was further inflamed Tuesday at 6:40 a.m. Washington time when Trump fired a white-hot shot straight at Berlin’s glass-and-concrete chancellery.
“We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change,” Trump wrote in his early-morning tweet.
Continue to washingtonpost.com article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germans-perplexed-as-trump-escalates-feud/2017/05/30/eeb30fdc-4552-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpgermany-545pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.710d06e0a0bc
