Trump ‘right’ to say Europe’s defense spending is a ‘problem’ – POLITICO

“We have the NATO secretary general talking about adding Ukraine to NATO,” Grenell told the Davos panel, watching video from Los Angeles. “It’s the American people who pay for defense. You can’t ask the American people to expand NATO when current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who have to step up their efforts.

“And so, when … we have leaders who are going to speak more and more, we have to make sure that those leaders are spending the right amount of money,” he added.

Ukraine, attacked for years by the forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin, managed to convince NATO to be admitted to the group, without success.

When Rutte was Dutch prime minister, the Netherlands regularly failed to meet the NATO target of 2% of GDP on defense spending. But he’s converted now that he leads the world’s most powerful military alliance.

“Thanks also in part to (Trump) and perhaps to a large extent, we have seen this increase in NATO spending on the European side,” the NATO chief said.

“He felt that basically the United States was getting a bad deal and that Europe was essentially financing its social model, its health system, its retirement system (while) we were underfinancing defense. The problem , of course, is that we are underfunded not at that 2 percent yet. That’s problem No. 1. Problem No. 2 is that 2 percent is not enough, according to. YOU, this is not enough,” Rutte said.