Trump Says NATO Allies Don’t Pay Their Share. Is That True?
Alexander said that Citing the amount not spent over the years is fine,
Trump said that Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years,
Gary J. Schmitt, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said Mr. Trump was putting it in layman’s terms and "doesn’t care whether it’s technically accurate."
But Mr. Schmitt identified two problems: "One, because it’s not technically correct, it is too easily dismissed by the very folks he wants to put pressure on.
In 2006, even as the United States was increasing military spending because of the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, European allies were shrinking their military spending.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, said last month
that the number of alliance members that would meet the 2 percent target next year would rise to eight.
In his final policy speech before stepping down in 2011, Mr. Gates said Americans were growing impatient spending money "on behalf of nations
that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense." Mr. Obama raised it during a visit to Europe after Russia’s Ukraine intervention.
