U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday once again criticized what he considers to be NATO countries’ low military spending, drawing a comparison with that of the U.S., according to the EFE news agency, as reported by Agerpres.
“The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country—by a wide margin—to protect them, without getting anything in return,” the president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, a few days before the Alliance summit.
“U.S., $999 billion; United Kingdom, $90.5 billion; France, 66.5 billion; Italy, 48.8 billion; Poland, 44.3 billion. The figures for the others, including Germany, are much lower,” he noted, concluding that this “is ridiculous!”
A day earlier, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whittaker stated that some European NATO member states are “lagging behind” in fulfilling the commitment theymade to the White House leader to spend more on defense.
Under pressure from Trump, NATO member countries—with the exception of Spain—committed at the Alliance’s previous summit, held last year in The Hague, to increase their defense budgets to 5% of GDP in phases by 2035, a percentage broken down into 3.5% for strictly military spending and 1.5% to fund defense-related investments, such as critical infrastructure, strengthening the defense industry, cyber defense, etc.
Currently, “some allies are doing more than others, and countries such as Poland, the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic states, and Germany are leading the pack,” Matt Whittaker noted at a press conference.
“But we have some that are lagging behind, either because they are not spending enough or because they are not on a credible path to meeting the commitments made in The Hague,” the U.S. ambassador said, without naming those countries.
President Trump “expects all allies to step up their efforts and urgently commit to the 5% target,” Whittaker said.
Trump often verbally attacks NATO partners for what he considers to be insufficient economic involvement or a lack of support for his decisions, as happened during the war with Iran, when several European countries denied the U.S. Air Force access to bases on their territories. He has even criticized the organization itself, which he has described as a “paper tiger,” and has threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Europe or even to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, although this is a decision he cannot make unilaterally.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is acting as a mediator between the U.S. president and the other partners. He met with Trump in Washington last week and promised that “billions of dollars in defense contracts”—which could benefit American companies—would be announced at the summit to be held on July 7 and 8 in Ankara.
source – AGERPRES
