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Comment by philliphaydon | Hacker News Reader

It still makes me laugh that trump called them out and they called him an idiot and now it’s one of the few things he got right.

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Who called Trump an idiot for his criticism of German energy policy? He's not even the first US president to criticize German reliance on Russian gas--both Obama and Bush before him were critics of it. And there's been a lot of criticism even within Europe about the policy. By the time you get to Nord Stream 2, basically even not named Germany or Russia was screaming at the top of their lungs "this is a bad idea" (and Poland, not the US, being the loudest of all).

I will grant you that Trump did get this right... but it was by no means a policy that he was an architect of, and the degree to which he was invested in this policy was questionable (US sanctions were driven largely by Congress, not the president).

The problem was also, that everyone had secondary motives in that conversation. Poland and Ukraine earned money by passing gas through from Russia, the US and UK sell LNG and oil and would benefit from it.

And do not forget, Germany is historically twice in the situation to keep the balance between east and west. Once after WWII and once in 1990 after the reunification. pumping money into Russia was also part of a global appeasement politics. That geopolitical game is well understood.

As a German, that is what I remember of that screaming. And now, some months in, we still have no clear statement who blew up the pipelines.

This whole pipeline game is far more complex than just "bad reliance of Germany from Russia"

> Who called Trump an idiot for his criticism of German energy policy?

You're right that this was a pretty easy call made by tons of people for a very long time before & after Trump. Also, GP is a little off, they didn't actually call him an 'idiot', they just smirked and said that they knew better:

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accuse...

> German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas could be seen smirking alongside his colleagues.

...

> Trump’s attacks haven’t changed that calculus. After his July remarks, Merkel responded that she may be in a better position to judge her country’s dependence than the current U.S. president.

> “I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union, and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom,” she said at the time.

When Trump says "we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers", I'd be smirking, too.

(and check the videos: they only started laughing once he got past that sentence)

Why does it make you laugh?

Because the German's laughed at him at the UN general assembly when he called this out.

I think you'll find that the Germans weren't laughing at Trumps criticism of their energy policy, they were just laughing at Trump. Period.

I can provide citation if needed.

Trump would often get things right but for the wrong reasons. I call this the "Donald Trump stopped clock principle"

Sadly, many people don't understand that. Either because the refuse everything said & done by him or because they don't see the actual motivation he had to act in that way.

Applies to many other entities, too.

What was the “wrong reason” he got it right here for?

The reasoning is dead-simple obvious - becoming reliant on a nation-state which does not share your values and shared-future is a foolish idea.

Further even, “the haters” for lack of a better term - spent his term calling him a Putin-Puppet so why would he be suggesting folks decouple from Russia? The only thing coming to mind on that note would be a they-do-the-opposite level 33rd Dimension Chess move a la the Obama-Republican skit from Key & Peele.

Uncharitably, this just reads like cope. A grade school inability to admit your rival has the ability to be intelligent and correct with their own legitimate belief system. Again, like the K&P skit.

You assume Trump is special here in comparison to other politicians? Why?

Eh, we have to look at what rationale was behind a call, not just that they got the result right. And in Trump's case, I doubt there was much consideration of it beyond it being a good rhetorical jab in line with his general contrarian antics.

Why would you say that? His speech specifically referenced energy security and Russia’s increasing ability to blackmail Europe.

His speech also came after Europe already realized that in 2014 when the Crimea was annexed [0], and countries didn't want to go too hard with sanctions cause of the dependency. The obvious motive for the speech was a desire to sell US gas to Europe.

[0] For example see a policy brief from the european parliament in 2014: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2014/5364...

Yet Germany insisted on proceeding with Nordstream 2 anyway. And the US has now spent a hundred billion pushing back an emboldened Russia.

And given the total portion of German energy needs that came from Nuclear it wasn't even right, just less wrong.

Russians and Prussians doing something together for their own benefit and to the detriment of Europe? I’m shook my good sir! Shooken right up.

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