Pentagon Funding Deal Includes $8B Hike and Support for NATO

Stars and Stripes reports that lawmakers unveiled a $839 billion full-year defense spending bill that gives the Pentagon about $8 billion more than the Trump administration requested, including funding for a 3.8% troop pay raise and an additional $6 billion for Navy shipbuilding. The legislation provides $400 million for a Ukraine security assistance program that the Trump administration had sought to defund and $200 million for the Baltic Security Initiative, with appropriators declaring “ironclad” congressional support for NATO amid President Trump’s intensifying push to take control of Greenland.

However, Reuters reports that the United States plans to eliminate roughly 200 positions from NATO command centers, including the UK-based NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Allied Special Operations Forces Command in Brussels, a move likely to intensify concerns in Europe about Washington’s commitment to the alliance. The drawdown comes as NATO traverses “one of the most diplomatically fraught moments in its 77-year history,” with President Trump recently re-posting a social media message identifying NATO as a “threat to the United States.”