Keystone-SDA
President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that NATO countries must increase their defense budgets to 5% of their GDP after repeatedly saying that members of the alliance were not doing enough to ensure their protection.
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January 7, 2025 – 7:38 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) “They can all afford it,” said the Republican billionaire, who will take office on January 20 at the White House. “They should be at 5%, not 2%,” he added during a press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida (southeast).
The former and future American president makes no secret of the little regard he has for the Atlantic Alliance, a pillar of security in Europe since the Second World War, repeatedly repeating that its members do not pay enough for the protection of the United States.
In particular, he sowed panic during the electoral campaign by threatening to no longer guarantee the protection of NATO countries against Russia if they did not devote a sufficient budget to their defense.
“If they pay their bills, and I think they treat us fairly, the answer is absolutely I would stay with NATO,” he said in a recent interview.
NATO countries committed ten years ago, after Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, to devote at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to military spending. 23 out of 32 have kept this commitment.
The head of the Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, himself warned last month that Europe would have to spend “much more” to ensure its defense.
Swiss
