Trump's attack on a European country: “They have always paid very little.” Reason to irritate US President
Donald Trump. Photo credit: Aaron Schwartz / Zuma Press / Profimedia
US President Donald Trump said Spain is “notorious” for reduced defense expenses and said that it has to pay as much as the other NATO countries for defense, Reuters reports.
“NATO will have to punish Spain. Spain paid very little. It has always paid very little. Either they were good negotiators or they did not do the right thing,” Trump told reporters.
“I think Spain has to pay what everyone has to. Spain is notorious because it pays little,” Trump said when asked if Spain should increase his defense budget if the NATO military spending target will be increased.
The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, was informed on Thursday by the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez about the refusal of Madrid to engage in an additional increase of defense expenses, Sanchez describing as “irrational and counterproductive” his proposal to increase defense budgets.
A large NATO country in Europe rejects the increase of military expenses proposed by the Alliance: “It's irrational”
In a letter to Rutte, Prime Minister Sanchez proposes to include a more “flexible” formula in the declaration to be adopted at the NATO summit to take place next week, meaning that the 5% of GDP for military expenditures or Spain will be exempted from its implementation.
Sanchez explains in the letter that the allocation of 5% of GDP for the defense budget, even in the formula proposed by Rutte, of 3.5% of GDP strictly for defense and 1.5% of GDP for related investments, is incompatible with the need to ensure other expenses necessary for Spain and states the legitimate right of each government, or not to make a ” public services and social assistance.
US President Donald Trump has asked NATO's European members to increase their defense budgets to 5% of GDP, far beyond the current 2% of GDP, which Rutte said one day ago that it will be fulfilled only this year, 11 years after assuming.
