https://arab.news/436uq
During a press conference last week in Montenegro, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he was “extremely optimistic” about NATO’s future, pointing to recent increases in defense spending across the alliance, and adding that US President Donald Trump’s reelection “played a large role here.”
This was followed by comments from Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, who said the upcoming NATO summit in Turkiye will serve as a “report card” for the progress European allies are making on defense spending.
Heading into the summit this July, several issues will be on the agenda, from continued support for Ukraine to air defense across the alliance and the implications of the war with Iran. But top of Trump’s mind will be defense spending and burden sharing. There is no doubt he will want to see meaningful progress on this issue, one he has been consistent about since the early days of his first term.
The US leader is not alone among American presidents in criticizing Europe for failing to spend enough on its own defense, but he has certainly been the most vocal. At the 2006 NATO summit in Riga, alliance members first committed to spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. However, progress did not materialize. By the time Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, only three NATO members — the US, UK, and Greece — met this benchmark.
