Trump lashes out at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders over defense spending

The United States spent more than 3.5% of its GDP on defense in 2017, or about $685 billion, according to a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation report.

Of Nato’s 29 members, just five meet that target this year: the US, Greece, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Latvia.

The president made the remarks less a formal proposal, but while urging members to up their contributions and promote fair burden sharing across the organization.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted Wednesday that member countries have already been increasing their defense spending.

“But she also says that in the end we need to be engaging with Russian Federation and that’s why she welcomes the president’s decision to go there”.

That brings us to Trump’s tweet, so all in all, it looks like we’re right back where we started when the day began.

“I think it is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russian Federation”.

Nikonov said Trump was now strong enough to pursue his own agenda.

Government insiders hope that Trump’s swift condemnation of the Salisbury attack – alongside Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and May – as well as the US’s expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in the aftermath, indicate he will be supportive of the UK’s firm stance on Russia.

“I myself experienced that a part of Germany that was controlled by the Soviet Union, and I am very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany”, Merkel said. “We decide our own policies and make our own decisions”.

This is not the first time Trump has taken aim at Nord Stream 2.

“We are willing to increase our defence spending as agreed in Wales”.

Trump has not responded to Kerry.

“Many countries are not paying what they should, and, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back”, Trump said at a breakfast meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Schumer’s warning comes a day after Trump said his easiest meeting on his foreign trip to Europe over the next week could be his sit-down with Putin. “And it can’t be explained, and you know that”.

Mr. Trump specifically cited soybeans as an example of how American farmers are struggling. Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung headlined its story: “It is not only bad, it is catastrophic”.

The Trump administration is now trying to derail a German-Russian project to double the capacity of the underwater Nord Stream gas pipeline. “Since Trump became president, USA funding for military presence in Europe – the European Deterrence Initiative -has been increased by 40 percent”.

Alluding to Trump’s comments about Germany, Kerry also said that “European energy security is an important topic for allies to discuss, even when they disagree”. “But other presidents never did anything about it because I don’t think they’d up it or wanted to get involved”, Trump said.