President: NATO Member Nations Must Increase Defense Spending
President: NATO Member Nations Must Increase Defense Spending
Terri Moon Cronk – DoD News
President Donald J. Trump called for NATO member nations to step up and pay their “fair share” of defense spending in the fight against global terrorism.
The president made his remarks today in Brussels at the unveiling of the NATO 9/11 Memorial during a stop at the new NATO headquarters building during his first overseas trip since taking office in January.
“We remember and mourn those nearly 3,000 innocent people who were brutally murdered by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001,” Trump said. “Our NATO allies responded swiftly and decisively, invoking for the first time in its history the Article 5 collective defense commitments.”
He said the May 22 attack on Manchester, England, demonstrates “the depths of the evil we face with terrorism,” and called it a “barbaric and vicious attack upon our civilization.”
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack that killed at least 22 people and injured approximately 120 others, according to published reports.
POTUS Calls On NATO Nations
The NATO of the future must include a great focus on terrorism, immigration, threats from Russia and those along NATO's eastern and southern borders, the president said.
“These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct with [NATO] Secretary [General Jens] Stoltenberg and members of the alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations.”
But 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should for their defense, Trump said, noting, “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.”
During the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all other NATO countries combined, he said. “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.”
2 Percent GDP Not Sufficient
Yet, he warned, it should be recognized that with chronic underpayments and growing terrorism threats, even 2 percent of the GDP from member nations 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,” Trump said, adding that if NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, NATO would be stronger than it is today, particularly from the threat of terrorism.
“Wherever they exist in our societies, we must drive [terrorists] out and never ever let them back in. This call for driving out terrorism is a message I took to a historic gathering of Arab and Muslim leaders across the region, hosted by Saudi Arabia,” the president said.
Terrorism must be stopped in its tracks, or the horror of Manchester and many other places will continue, he said.
(Follow Terri Moon Cronk on Twitter: @MoonCronkDoD)
While Russia plays their info and disinformation war games in Europe as a whole and now fully against Germany after Holland and then France…
DoD does not need to play them as well…it would benefit all had DoD fully and accurately protraited what happened yesterday in Brussels with the Trump offensive attitude and verbal aggression directed against NATO….
Maybe just maybe DoD should be a tad more honest in their reporting….they really do not have to match Russia Today……
Mark Hertling
@MarkHertling
A third of my 38 yrs in the Army was served in & around NATO, a valuable, adaptive alliance. What happened today was embarrassing, saddening.
General Hertling commanded US troops in Europe and Iraq
He had been the Commander USAREUR in 2012 and should know NATO…..
The US President standing in front of a NATO memorial for Sept 11 2001 in their new Hdqs literally bashed all leaders of the 27 members including the newest member Montenegro who just joined over massive Russian pressure.
Seems he simply wanted to forget that the only time NATO has ever triggered Article 5 in the common defense of NATO was Sept 11 2001….in support to and for US…..AND he seems to have forgotten that NATO troops have died in AFG, Iraq and Syria as well….
AND he wants more support from NATO in his attempt to eradicate IS from this earth….that will not now happen…
Massive critique has rained down on his actions in Brussels from virtually all European MSM….while it was great sound bites for his voter base it will not win the US any friends inside Europe…and it raises the voices of those that say it is time to ditch the Us and form their own European Army to answer European needs….
Besides it was embarassing to hear a US President utter words that reflect the simple fact he absolutely does not understand how NATO functions much less how funding of NATO works…
NATO is not a paid membership in one of his golf clubs…..
After two days we see that the Trump WH is in total chaos…simply do not understand how NATO works…simply stated we are reviewing Russian sanctions and then walked it backwards until they tripped over themselves and then backtracked on Trumps statements about Germany…and created turmoil in a NATO meeting that was designed to actual appease Trump….
And this was a clear and concise FP national level strategy???
Chaos nothing more nothing less…..
Trumps altered state of reality…this maybe what he thinks he achieved by bashing them in front of the NATO Hdqs BUT that is not what the MSM of the various countries are carrying as news from NATO or G7…….
Not exactly sure in the Trump WH is telling him this….?????
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Many NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should. Money is beginning to pour in- NATO will be much stronger.
Trump still fantasizing NATO countries pay us. Ignorant & unteachable, delusional or just lying?
This article from Der Spiegel illustrates why 2% is indeed, “the bare minimum”: http://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-1148796.html
Basically, European NATO countries can do more with less money if they form collective formations and if each country specializes.
For all of Der Spiegel’s disdain for European nationalism and Euro-skepticism, this was the same paper that exposed the Bundeswehr’s terrible state in the early 1970s.
Like it or not, Russia can do more with less, surge faster, and secure local superiority if not supremacy, on both a quantitative and qualitative basis. Unfortunately, Russia can do all this precisely where NATO is and will always be weakest.
Despite suggestions that the Americans, Britons and Poles have turned away from the West, the fact is that these countries will all be there if Putin rolls the dice on Latvia. As Der Spiegel notes, at least they “can” be there, which is half the battle.
There may small parts of NATO that deal with terrorism but not much. The agencies that do- police, immigration, border control, intelligence etc. aren’t counted towards the 2%. These areas don’t count toward defense spending as if it matters whether an armed sentry is a cop, soldier or security guard.
“Defense spending” is also uniformly under reported. Veterans’ costs and the interest paid on the loans to pay for defense are never included.
Is it unfair to Americans that Germany doesn’t pay more for the defense of Europe? No, because the Germans don’t see a threat. The US defense budget is per capita bigger but most has nothing to do with NATO and much goes toward the “empire” which most Germans don’t care about. Most (rightly) see the 2% goal as just a sales gimmick to keep money flowing to the military regardless of real security needs.