Trump Calls for NATO Countries to Spend 5% of GDP on Defense
In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, US President-elect Donald Trump demanded that NATO member states increase their defense spending to 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP). “They can all afford it” Trump said.
Trump, a Republican, had previously announced during his election campaign that he would push for all NATO member states to spend at least 3% of their GDP on defense. He has now increased his demand even further.
Currently, all NATO member states are required to invest at least 2% of their GDP in defense, with Germany being one of the few countries to have recently met this target.
Trump had previously threatened to withdraw the US from the military alliance if its member states did not meet the 2% target, which he had previously demanded.
Germany’s Defense Minister, Robert Habeck, had called for an increase in defense spending to 3.5% of GDP, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has criticized this proposal, saying it is “not well thought out.”
Scholz questioned the plan, saying that increasing defense spending to 140 billion euros from the current 80 billion euros without a clear plan for how the money would be spent or where it would come from is unrealistic. “Who will pay the bill? The citizens?” he asked.
In the same press conference, Trump also discussed the prospects of Ukraine joining NATO, stating that it would never be a member of the alliance and that the prospect of NATO membership had sparked the war in Ukraine. He expressed understanding for Russia’s position, saying that if Ukraine were to join NATO, it would put Russia at its doorstep, and he could understand its concerns.
Trump also criticized the handling of the Ukraine crisis by the previous administration, led by President Joe Biden, saying that many mistakes had been made and that the war could escalate further.
When asked about a potential NATO agreement for Ukraine, Trump said that Biden had broken a previously agreed-upon deal that would have been satisfactory for Ukraine and others. He also left open the possibility of a military annexation of Greenland and the surrounding area of the Panama Canal, saying that he could not rule it out and that something might need to be done.