Donald Trump, the president-elect, has a demand on Western allies that is more than twice the current target, stating that Nato countries should spend the equivalent of 5 % of their financial output on defense.
At a press conference held on Tuesday in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump said,” I think Nato should have 5 %.” He said,” I’m the one who got them to pay 2 %,” referring to the pressure he put on them during his previous term to meet the current spending target.
No military alliance part is currently donating 5 % of its gross domestic product to security, including the US. The president-elect didn’t state whether he’d improve US spending to that amount.
Some Nato members have been persuaded by Trump’s threats to leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Vladimir Putin‘s 2022 full-scale war of Ukraine.
As it seeks to establish new requirements for members ‘ spending on weapons and defense, Secretary General Mark Rutte has indicated that Nato is likely to increase its spending target to at least 3 % of GDP.
Any future account of Ukraine, which Kyiv claims is crucial to achieving a ceasefire with Moscow but which Russia has said would be undesirable, is another pressing problem facing the alliance right now.
Trump made the claim at his press conference that Russia had long been strongly opposed to a Ukrainian Nato membership before Putin’s day. ” And somewhere along the column, Biden said,’ No, they should be able to meet Nato.’ Well, next Russia has something right on their doorstep, and I may know their feeling about that”, he added.
According to Nato’s latest assessment, 23 out of 32 friends were projected to reach the 2 % goal in 2024. In contrast, there were three in 2014.
There have been significant differences in the defence spending of NATO people. Poland committed a record 186.6 billion zloty ($ 45 billion ) on defense last year, or 4.7 % of GDP, while Germany, the European Union’s biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine, spent 2.1 %, or €72 billion ($ 75 billion ), according to its defense ministry.
Marcus Faber, mind of the security council in Germany’s congress, the Bundestag, told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that the Nato states would have to believe on a fresh goal,” but it’s already apparent now that this new goal will be three more than five percent”.
” And of course, this will be decided and agreed on by compromise — and not by one member condition alone”, he said.
