Donald Trump praised Nato countries for being willing to lift defence spending to 5% in his first public remarks at the military alliance’s annual summit, and said that he expected the US to be fully in support.
The president was speaking at a preliminary press conference in The Hague that was dominated by his rejection of overnight reports that Iran’s nuclear sites were not destroyed in US bombing, and where he was also praised by the Nato chief,Mark Rutte, for being the “daddy”.
Asked aboutNatobefore a morning plenary session of the leaders of all 32 Nato countries, where they will sign off on the spending increase, Trump said: “We’re with them all the way. They have very big things to announce today.
“I’ve been asking to go up to 5% for a number of years and they’re going up to 5%, from 2%, and a lot of people didn’t even pay the 2%. I think that’s going to be very big news. Nato’s going to become very strong with us.”
Under the new plan, Nato members will commit to lifting defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, of which 3.5% is core military spending and the rest is infrastructure, intelligence, cybersecurity and other spending allies can already match.
Trump’s comments bode well for the alliance, which Trump has in the past doubted, complaining that its other members from Europe and Canada do not spend enough on defence while taking advantage of the US security umbrella.
Eager to maintain Trump’s upbeat mood, Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, responded with praise. “I want to state that without President Trump this would not have happened,” and said that on Wednesday would come “the big splash”.
The new targets, Rutte continued, were “not about US taxpayers paying more” – with the US nearly in line with the 3.5% military spending target – but about “Europe and Canada paying more” to in most cases increase their defence budgets.
Trump agreed and said that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had failed to make any progress on the issue. “When Biden was here it just died, it just died, like everything else died,” he said.
The secretary general also said that Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, with 14 13,000kg (30,000lb) bunker-busting bombs, was “extremely impressive” and sent a signal to other countries beyondIranthat Trump was “a man of peace” who was willing to use the “enormous strength of the US military”.
After a discussion about the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites, which included sweeping criticism by Trump of CNN and the New York Times for reporting on the US damage assessments, Rutte sought to end the discussion with further praise.
RecallingTrump’s strong outburston Iran and Israel on Tuesday – where he accused both countries of not knowing “what the fuck they’re doing” amid reports of breaches by both of a ceasefire he had imposed – Rutte said: “Daddy sometimes has to use strong language.”