In NATO speech, Trump is vague about mutual defense pledge
BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump on Thursday once again refused to explicitly endorse NATO’s mutual defense pledge, instead lecturing European leaders on what he called their “chronic underpayments” to the military alliance.
Speaking at the opening of a new
NATO headquarters,
Trump offered a vague promise to “never forsake the friends that stood by our side” in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks — a pledge that White House officials later said amounted to an affirmation of mutual defense.
But European allies are likely to see Trump’s words as falling far short of the robust endorsement of NATO’s Article 5 clause, the “onefor-all, all-for-one” principle that has been the foundation of NATO since it was established 68 years ago after World War II.
Trump’s repeated refusal to endorse that principle as a candidate, and now as president, has raised fears among allies in NATO about whether the United States would automatically come to their defense in the event of an attack.
In an interview with The New York Times just before officially claiming the Republican nomination last July, Trump said that if he were elected, the United States would come to the defense of the Baltic States against a Russian invasion only if those small countries spent more on their military and contributed more to the alliance.
“If they fulfill their obligations to us,” Trump said in the interview, “the answer is yes.”
Other top U.S. officials have offered reassurances. Traveling on Air Force One this week, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson told reporters, “Of course we support Article 5.” But until those words are spoken by Trump, leaders of other NATO nations seem bound to remain concerned.
Instead of stressing an Article 5 commitment, Trump used his remarks at the NATO headquarters to criticize the other leaders assembled behind him for not contributing 2 percent of their countries’ gross domestic product to their defense. The allied nations have agreed to do so, but have often fallen short.
“Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats,” Trump said. “If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today.”
The president said he had been “very direct” with the leadership of NATO about what he said was a failure on the part of many nations to pay their fair share. “Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying,” he said.
Earlier, Trump, a blunt critic of the EU during his campaign for the White House, received a chilly reception from his European counterparts as they began meetings in Brussels, clashing over trade, climate and the best way to confront Russia.
The president’s first meeting with the Continent’s leaders began with officials from the United States and Europe saying nothing to one another. After being welcomed to Brussels, Trump said, “Thank you very much,” but he was otherwise silent as he gazed at the cameras across the room.
Donald Tusk, who represents the leaders of the bloc’s 28 member states as president of the European Council, made clear after the morning meeting that there had been several areas of disagreement.
“Some issues remained open like climate and trade,” Tusk told reporters shortly after the meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels. “And I am not 100 percent sure that we can say today — ‘we’ means Mr. President and myself — that we have a common position, common opinion, about Russia.”
Trump and Tusk differed over the intentions and policies of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, an increasing source of anxiety in Europe in light of the country’s apparent attempts to meddle in elections in Europe and the United States, and its increasingly assertive foreign policy, notably in Ukraine.
Tusk expressed a far more skeptical view of the Russians in the talks, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.
“Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats. If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today.” – DONALD TRUMP