– Over the years, all these countries NATO spent significantly less than 2 percent of GDP on their armed forces, leaving our forces overloaded. We were the ones who made up the difference, paying for it to make up for the shortfall and help deter threats, he said. Donald Trump on Monday during a speech to the National Guard Association in Detroit.
– I will insist that every NATO country must spend at least 3 percent, we need to move to 3 percent. 2 percent is the theft of the centuryespecially considering how much we pay, he added.
US Presidential Election 2024. Donald Trump Warns Europe: “We Will Help You, But You Have to Pay”
According to NATO data, currently only five member states spend more than 3 percent of GDP on defense – Poland, Estonia, USA, Latvia and Greece – while 2/3 of the countries meet the requirement of spending at the level of 2%. The demand to raise this threshold to 3% was submitted in March this year by the president Andrzej Duda before visiting the White House, although it was not supported by the president Joe Biden. However, Duda discussed it during a later conversation with Donald Trump in New York in April.
During Monday's speech, Trump again – as he does in almost every speech – accused European countries of taking advantage of the United States, both in trade and military relations. He also said Europe should be more supportive Ukrainyand America allegedly pays $150 billion more for this purpose (according to EU data, Europe spends more in total). He also once again quoted an anecdote from the NATO summit, when he told one of the leaders of the alliance country that he will not defend countries that do not pay enough for defense.
– We are losing hundreds of billions of dollars on Europe's defense. All I'm saying is: we have to equalize. We will help you, but you have to pay – he said.
US Presidential Election 2024. Trump on Army Shortages
The Republican candidate for US president also stated that US military “has no more ammunition”because “she distributed it to various groups, mainly Ukraine”. At the same time, he criticized the government for “stupidity”.
During the event in Detroit, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has been accused in the past by most party politicians of reproducing the narrative The Kremlin. Gabbard ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primaries but never received more than 2% of the vote.
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