North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said allies have started to increase spending and burden-sharing, something President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded.
“All allies have stopped the cuts, all have started to increase and the majority of allies have put forward plans on how to meet the 2 percent, or spend 2 percent on defense, by 2024,” Stoltenberg said Thursday, speaking to NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
Trump has been pushing for all 29 members to increase their military budgets to 2 percent spending of the gross domestic product (GDP) since the NATO meeting on May 25, 2017. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also called on allies to increase their commitment in order to lessen the burden placed on the U.S., the organization’s biggest spender.
way to go,” said Stoltenberg, according to a report by Defense News.
The news comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Wednesday to raise Germany’s defense budget, which is being seen as a partial yield to Trump’s demands. – READ MORE
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