Donald Trump
The President of the United States Donald trump demanded of the States-members of NATO meet financial obligations within the Alliance. He said this after talks with Secretary General of the organization Jens Stoltenberg, reports BFMTV.
“I was very, very Frank with the Secretary Stoltenberg and members of the Alliance, when I told them that they must finally pay their share,” — said the American leader.
According to trump, 23 of the 28 member countries still do not pay those amounts that they must contribute to the General budget of the organization, which is unfair to Americans.
On 20 March, the representative of the foreign Ministry of Germany Martin Schaefer said that the medium-term financial plans of Germany not include raising defense spending to 2 percent of GDP. In addition, he urged to “be realistic” in the issue of increasing military budgets.
Prior to that, trump expressed the opinion that Berlin is supposedly “owes huge sums of money, NATO and the United States,” and noted that it is necessary to pay a “powerful and very expensive defense that we provide in Germany.”
According to the NATO Charter, the participating countries must be part of the overall defense budget to 2 percent of GDP, however, at present, about 70 percent of the funding at the expense of the United States.