Trump called myself a fan of NATO, but asked the members to pay the bills
NEW YORK, February 19. /Offset. TASS Ivan sawyers/. The US President Donald trump called himself a fan of NATO, but asked the members of the Alliance to meet financial obligations.
During a Saturday speech in the us state of Florida, the U.S. leader said that Americans need “to overcome the chasm of mistrust and to build opening up new possible bridges of cooperation” and “going to ignore the echo of yesterday’s battles.”
“We fight battles that no longer serve us well, we participate in the battles others against us are acting unfairly,” — said the American leader.
In this regard, he stated: “I’m a fan of NATO, but a NATO, many of the States, which we defend very rich state, do not pay the bills. They should help us”.
On Wednesday, the new U.S. Secretary of defense James Mattis has officially warned its NATO partners that the United States can reduce its contribution to the Alliance, if the European countries will not begin to provide for the defense.
Currently, defense spending, the United States significantly exceed the total costs of all the other 27 member States of the Alliance. Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that in 2016, the European countries of the bloc has increased its military spending by 3.8%, that’s $10 billion According to the Secretary General, 5 of the 28 NATO countries reached the required level of expenditure, two Baltic countries — Latvia and Lithuania — are approaching this result for them is Romania. Meanwhile, according to statistics of the IMF, only four NATO countries in 2016, carried out by military spending above 2% of GDP — the US, the UK, Greece and Estonia.