Sources: US President Warned NATO Allies Washington Would Go It Alone If They Did Not Spend

US President Donald Trump told NATO allies in a closed-door meeting on Thursday that governments needed to raise spending to 2 percent of economic output by January next year or the United States would go its own way, two people familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

News ID: 71171

Date: 12 July 2018 - 18:31

TEHRAN (Defapress)- The ultimatum was delivered in a session at the NATO summit, the sources said, while, one person added that “he said they must raise spending by January 2019 or the United States would go it alone”.

However, he did not directly threaten to withdraw formally from NATO, the people stated.

A White House official had stated on Wednesday that Trump has told NATO countries to increase their defense spending to four percent of their gross domestic product, higher than the group's goal of two percent.

Speaking with journalists at the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump said he "thinks" he can pull out of NATO without congressional approval.

The US President made the statement when asked if he had threatened to pull out of the alliance, and whether he thought he could do so without first consulting Congress. Trump ignored the first question, but on the second question, he said “I think I can”.

According to Politico, Trump warned his allies behind closed doors that they would need to radically increase defense spending or the US “will do our own thing”. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg then reportedly shifted the meeting to an allies-only emergency session, requiring European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to leave the room.

After the emergency session, Trump said that the alliance is “very unified, very strong, no problem”.

Trump also hailed a personal victory at a NATO summit on Thursday, saying allies had sharply increased defense spending commitments after he provoked a crisis session with a tirade at European leaders.

“I told people that I would be very unhappy if they didn’t up their commitments,” the US President told reporters after the second day of the Brussels meeting, when NATO leaders huddled with Trump to try to defuse a crisis.

During a press conference, Trump said that the allies had agreed to dramatically increase spending.

“Tremendous progress has been made. Everyone’s agreed to substantially up their commitment. They’re going to up it at levels that they’ve never thought of before,” Trump told reporters after the second day of the Brussels summit.

“Commitments were made. The commitment was at 2 percent, ultimately that’ll be going up quite a bit higher than that,” he added.

The US President has been openly critical of his NATO allies since becoming President in January 2017. Ahead of the summit being held in the Belgian capital, Brussels, Trump sent out a tweet about the funding of NATO.

Trump has repeatedly said the US was bearing an unfair burden because it spends many times more of its GDP on defence than other NATO countries.

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