Low Energy: Dozens Protest Donald Trump at NATO Summit
A demonstration against President Donald Trump’s visit to Brussels failed to muster up more than a few dozen protesters Wednesday.
“Make Peace Great Again,” the group behind the protest, anticipated thousands to march against President Trump, who is in town for a high-stakes NATO summit.
In a brief interview with Euro News correspondent Damon Embling, an organizer could barely contain her embarrassment over the failed demonstration.
“You were expecting a few hundred, if not a few thousand people here tonight — just a few dozen have turned out. What went wrong?” Embling asked.
“Ummm — I think it’s — what went wrong is not the good question to ask,” the organizer replied.
“I think it’s interesting — you know — the fact that we are several hundred meters away from where the evening gala is happening — Brussels is in lockdown. The city — the NATO headquarters itself is shut down.
“It’s very, very difficult for the peace movement to make its voice heard,” she complained.
President Trump dressed down NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday, blasting Germany and other European nations for leaving themselves vulnerable to Russia by using the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to help fulfill their energy needs.
“It is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes and pays out billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” President Trump began. “We’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries.”
“We’re paying a lot of money to protect, this has been going on for decades… it’s very unfair to our country, it’s very unfair to our taxpayers… these countries need to step it up, not over a ten year period, but immediately.”
President Trump is calling on NATO allies members to commit to boosting defense spending from 2 percent to 4 percent of their GDP by 2024.