President Donald Trump has urged NATO member countries to meet commitments to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, DoD News reported Thursday.
Trump said at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium that the 2 percent commitment is the “bare minimum” for addressing current threats and is not enough to meet modernization, readiness and force size needs.
“If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves,” he added.
Trump noted that 23 of 28 NATO members have yet to meet their defense spending commitments.
The president stated NATO must increase its focus on terrorism, immigration and threats from Russia as well as nations along NATO’s eastern and southern borders.
