Trump takes aim at NATO allies

President hones in on other countries’ defense spending

President Donald Trump said North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies haven’t boosted defense spending enough and linked that issue to a trade deficit with the European Union as he prepares to travel to Brussels this week for a summit with alliance members.

“By some accounts, the U. S. is paying for 90% of NATO with many countries nowhere close to their 2% commitment,” Trump claimed Monday in a Twitter post.

In 2014, NATO members pledged to spend at least 2 percent of economic output on defense by 2024. But Trump’s claim that the U.S. pays 90 percent of NATO’s total defense spending isn’t corroborated by available data. Based on NATO’s annual report for 2017, the U.S. share of defense spending by NATO members as a whole (in dollars at current prices and exchange rates) is 72 percent. According to an analysis last month, the U.S. share of NATO’s total civil and military budget is 22 percent, or about one-fifth of the total, compared with 10 percent for the U.K. and France, less than 15 percent for Germany, and the rest from other alliance members.

Trump departs today on a four-nation tour amid simmering disputes over trade and military spending with fellow Western democracies and speculation about whether he will rebuke or embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin. He meets the Russian leader in Helsinki as the finale of a trip with earlier stops in Belgium, England and Scotland.

In an earlier Twitter post, the president singled out Germany for contributing just 1 percent, which he said is one-fourth of what the U.S. is spending. “This is not fair, nor is it acceptable,” he said.

Trump also took aim at what he indicated were trade inequities with the EU on Monday in an indication he will attempt to link the U.S. commitment to European security with trade. “On top of this the European Union has a Trade Surplus of $151 Million with the U.S., with big Trade Barriers on U.S. goods. NO!”

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis website says that the EU had a trade in goods surplus with the U.S. in 2017 of $151.4 billion — not million.

According to an internal EU memo obtained by Bloomberg and using bureau figures, when including trade in goods, trade in services and primary income from investments, the U.S. has a 12 billion-euro surplus with the EU.

NATO leaders are to meet in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.

In the past few weeks, Trump has sent sharply worded letters to the leaders of several European countries, including Germany, Italy and Norway, as well as to Canada, urging increased defense spending and warning that the U.S. was losing patience.

“It will become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries continue to fail to meet our shared collective security commitments,” Trump said in a letter addressed to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg seen by Bloomberg News.

Estimated 2017 defense spending as a percentage of GDP was 1.2 percent in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy. Only five NATO members — the U.K., Estonia, Poland and Greece, as well as the U.S. — were forecast to have met the 2 percent target in 2017.

Some diplomats fear the president will threaten to pull troops out of Europe without more spending on defense, despite U.S. denials. Separately, doubts about Trump’s commitment to European security have pushed EU leaders to boost defense cooperation.

Trump has shown little regard for America’s traditional bonds with the Old World, upbraiding world leaders at NATO’s new headquarters a year ago for not spending enough on defense and criticizing Western trading partners last month at an international summit in Canada. On this trip, after meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels, he’ll travel to the United Kingdom, where widespread protests are expected, before he heads to one of his Scottish golf resorts for the weekend.

Although administration officials point to the long- standing alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, Trump’s itinerary will largely keep him out of central London, where significant protests are expected. Instead, a series of events — a black-tie dinner with business leaders, a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May and an audience with Queen Elizabeth II — will happen outside the bustling city, where Mayor Sadiq Khan has been in a verbal battle with Trump.

Woody Johnson, Trump’s ambassador to the U.K., said the president is aware of the planned protests but insisted that Trump “appreciates free speech” in both countries.

Information for this article was contributed by Terrence Dopp, Naomi Nix, Tony Capaccio, Richard Bravo and Nikos Chrysoloras of Bloomberg News; and by Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press.