NATO partners

Germany and the United States have a number of important things in common. The are both Western democracies, both have free market economies and both are members of NATO. How they are dealing with these various aspects is quite different. The US economy is seven times larger than Germany's and the US spends 16 times more on NATO than Germany does and that organization was founded to protect Europe from a Russian invasion. Germany has a budget surplus because they spend so little on defense and their trade policies in which they have high import taxes. The US has a budget deficit because of large defense cost and low import taxes. Germany will be doubling its natural gas purchases the end of this year when a new pipeline is completed under the Baltic from Russia. They could choose to purchase gas from the US which now supplies large quantities of natural gas to Europe. Germany is often referred to as one of our NATO partners.