Speaking in Brussels Thursday morning against the backdrop of the newly unveiled Article 5 and Berlin Wall Memorials, President Donald Trump strongly urged NATO leaders to significantly increase defense spending, saying it is unfair for member states to rely on American taxpayers to fulfill European obligations. Further, he called on members to provide a new focus on terrorism.
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"This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States. And many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years. Over the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all other NATO countries combined. If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves," he continued. "We should recognize that with these chronic underpayments and growing threats, even 2 percent of GDP is insufficient to close the gaps in modernizing, readiness, and the size of forces. We have to make up for the many years lost. Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats."
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On the campaign trail, candidate Trump called NATO obsolete and promised to hold members accountable for failing to pay their fair share of the defense burden.
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