Secretary of Defense James Mattis is taking a tour of America’s closest allies, seeking to reassure them that the United States will meet its global commitments in the era of Trump.
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Mr Stoltenberg said, while Nato’s European allies had increased military spending by almost four per cent, several countries still failed to meet the target of two per cent of GDP being spent on defence.
In 2014, the year Russian Federation seized Crimea and backed separatists ia war that has killed more than 9,750 people in eastern Ukraine, NATO leaders committed to halt defense spending cuts and move toward raising their military budgets to 2 percent of GDP within a decade.
“It is growing each year as we invest 222 billion dollars in new equipment and the United Kingdom steps up globally, with new ships, submarines and aircraft over the next decade, ” he said.
The U.S., which is easily NATO’s most powerful member, now spends 3.61 percent of GDP to defend the alliance, the Associated Press reported.
But he shared Trump’s call for an increase in European defence spending.
During the presidential campaing, Trump called North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “obselete”, and he has also suggested the United States might not continue to contribute as much to the alliance if other members did not pitch in more funding. He said: “An annual increase that we’re asking them to commit to would at least demonstrate good faith”. “We stand together. We defend each other”.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, CEO of International Crisis Group, an independent conflict prevention organisation, has called on Nato’s European members to step up their defence spending.
“Here’s the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen: I am brought in to be the secretary of defense”, he told reporters on a plane en route to Brussels before the meeting Wednesday. “I do have confidence that we will prove once again that we can react to the changing circumstances”, he said. It spends more on defense than all the others combined.
Mattis is set to echo longstanding US calls that European allies invest more on defence, something his predecessors under Republican and Democratic administrations have done for years. US intelligence agencies have accused Moscow of interfering in the 2016 USA presidential election. “And I agree with him”.
“He (General Mattis) said the patience of the USA taxpayer is beginning to run out – why should they take a greater share of the burden when all of us have committed to 2%”.
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Rasmussen, who served as NATO’s leader from 2009 to 2014, said Trump’s “America first” slogan put the 70-year alliance at risk.
