Trump hails NATO’s progress
Nations are ‘catching up’ on defense dues, he says
WASHINGTON – Marking the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the world’s most famous NATO critic – President Donald Trump – focused Tuesday on the money paid by members of the historic U.S.-European military alliance.
“Tremendous progress has been made,” Trump said in welcoming NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to the White House. Stoltenberg thanked Trump for his “strong commitment to NATO,” especially his “strong leadership on burden sharing.”
Though Trump and Stoltenberg frequently say nice things about each other, their latest meeting took place amid tensions over Trump’s criticism of the alliance, especially his assertions that some countries don’t contribute enough to mutual defense.
“There are many countries that take advantage of us very seriously, both at NATO and on trade,” Trump told a group of U.S. governors Feb. 25, though he praised NATO countries for increasing defense spending by about $100 billion in recent years.
“I have a great relationship with the leaders – but we have to be treated fairly,” Trump said.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Trump took credit for an increase in defense funding by some NATO members, but he said the
Trump “only paid attention to one issue: how much money they’re paying. That’s all he cares about.”
Nicholas Burns Former U.S. ambassador to NATO
organization’s spending goal – 2% of gross domestic product per country – “may have to go up.”
“When I came, it wasn’t so good, and now they’re catching up,” Trump said.
Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, called Trump’s comments “extremely disappointing,” noting that the president did not discuss the 70th anniversary or NATO’s accomplishments over those seven decades, including its help in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on the USA.
“He only paid attention to one issue: how much money they’re paying,” Burns said. “That’s all he cares about.”
Charles Kupchan, an adviser on Europe for President Barack Obama, said Trump sees NATO as a political issue, and getting allies to do more was one of his campaign pledges. Trump simply “declared victory on the spending front,” Kupchan said, and that allowed the president to praise NATO as much as he ever has.
“Supporters of NATO like me breathed a sigh of relief,” said Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University.
Trump often casts NATO spending in terms of how other countries owe the United States money, but that is not how NATO finances work: Each country pays for NATO commitments out of its own defense budget. During a summit in 2014 in Wales, NATO members agreed to increase defense budgets so they would be at least 2% of their gross domestic product by 2024.
Stoltenberg, who has a series of 70th-anniversary events in Washington this week, including an address to a joint session of Congress, has often downplayed NATO disputes with Trump. “The strength of NATO is that, despite these differences, we have always been able to unite around our core tasks,” he said Monday before leaving Brussels. “That is, to protect and defend each other.”
Two former U.S. ambassadors to NATO, Burns and Douglas Lute, wrote in a report released in February that Trump “is regarded widely in NATO capitals as the Alliance’s most urgent, and often most difficult, problem.”
Despite Trump’s attacks, NATO has remained resilient and popular with U.S. lawmakers and the public, Kupchan said.
“At the end of the day, he’s a politician, and I just don’t see anything in it for him” to attack NATO, he said. “I don’t see how Trump would consider that to be a political winner.”