Current:Home > MyNATO chief hails record defense spending and warns that Trump’s remarks undermine security-LoTradeCoin
NATO chief hails record defense spending and warns that Trump’s remarks undermine security
View Date:2024-12-24 00:31:44
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that European allies and Canada have ramped up defense spending to record levels, as he warned that former U.S. President Donald Trump was undermining their security by calling into question the U.S. commitment to its allies.
Stoltenberg said that U.S. partners in NATO have spent $600 billion more on their military budgets since 2014, when Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted the allies to reverse the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War ended.
“Last year we saw an unprecedented rise of 11% across European allies and Canada,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of the organization’s defense ministers in Brussels.
In 2014, NATO leaders committed to move toward spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. It has mostly been slow going, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago focused minds. The 2% figure is now considered a minimum requirement.
“This year I expect 18 allies to spend 2% of the GDP on defense. That is another record number and a six-fold increase from 2014 when only three allies met the target,” Stoltenberg said.
On Saturday, Trump, the front-runner in the U.S. for the Republican Party’s nomination this year, said he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO members that are “delinquent” in devoting 2% of GDP to defense.
President Joe Biden branded Trump’s remarks “dangerous” and “un-American,” seizing on the former president’s comments as they fuel doubt among U.S. partners about its future dependability on the global stage.
Stoltenberg said those comments call into question the credibility of NATO’s collective security commitment -– Article 5 of the organization’s founding treaty, which says that an attack on any member country will be met with a response from all of them.
“The whole idea of NATO is that an attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance and as long as we stand behind that message together, we prevent any military attack on any ally,” Stoltenberg said.
“Any suggestion that we are not standing up for each other, that we are not going to protect each other, that does undermine the security of all of us,” he said.
veryGood! (727)
Related
- More than 150 pronghorns hit, killed on Colorado roads as animals sought shelter from snow
- Steve Martin: Comic, banjo player, and now documentary film subject
- Nicholas Galitzine talks about transitioning from roles in historical dramas to starring in a modern romance
- Take a Trip To Flavortown With Guy Fieri’s New Sauces That Taste Good On Literally Everything
- Bodyless head washes ashore on a South Florida beach
- 2nd man pleads not guilty to Massachusetts shooting deaths of woman and her 11-year-old daughter
- Connecticut will try to do what nobody has done in March Madness: Stop Illinois star Terrence Shannon
- Why Ruby Franke’s Estranged Husband Says He Became a “Resident Exorcist” for Her Former Business Partner
- Fighting conspiracy theories with comedy? That’s what the Onion hopes after its purchase of Infowars
- NFL offseason workout dates: Schedule for OTAs, minicamps of all 32 teams in 2024
Ranking
- Caitlin Clark has one goal for her LPGA pro-am debut: Don't hit anyone with a golf ball
- Maine governor proposes budget revisions to fund housing and child care before April adjournment
- At collapsed Baltimore bridge, focus shifts to the weighty job of removing the massive structure
- Everything Christina Applegate Has Said About Her Multiple Sclerosis Battle
- Atlanta man dies in shootout after police chase that also kills police dog
- Inmate escapes Hawaii jail, then dies after being struck by hit-and-run driver
- Jets land star pass rusher Haason Reddick in trade with Eagles, marking latest splashy move
- 50 years after the former Yugoslavia protected abortion rights, that legacy is under threat
Recommendation
-
Republican Vos reelected as Wisconsin Assembly speaker despite losing seats, fights with Trump
-
Louis Gossett Jr., Oscar-winning actor in 'An Officer and a Gentleman,' dies at 87
-
How King Charles III Has Kept Calm and Carried on Since His Cancer Diagnosis
-
Lawsuit accuses Special Olympics Maine founder of grooming, sexually abusing boy
-
Ryan Reynolds Makes Dream Come True for 9-Year-Old Fan Battling Cancer
-
An Oklahoma council member with ties to white nationalists faces scrutiny, and a recall election
-
4th person charged in ambush that helped Idaho prison inmate escape from Boise hospital
-
Harvard says it has removed human skin from the binding of a 19th century book