Stoltenberg, Macron Insist on 2% GDP Defense Spending After Trump’s Push to Double It, Contradicting Trump

• Stoltenberg, Macron Insist on 2% GDP Defense Spending After Trump’s Push to Double It
  by https://www.rt.com/
  French President Emmanuel Macron has denied that NATO states agreed to increase defense spending beyond previous targets, pushing back on Donald Trump’s claim, earlier on Thursday, that the alliance agreed to more ambitious plans.
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  Commenting on the outcome of the two-day NATO summit, the French president said that the allies were sticking with an agreement reached in 2014, which calls for all states to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.
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  “Everyone agreed to raise spending as they agreed in 2014, and everyone agreed to respect the commitments they made. We reaffirmed a credible budget strategy that meets our needs,” Macron told journalists. The French president also criticized Trump’s suggestion that the target for NATO members’ defense spending should be raised from two to four percent of GDP.
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  German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a similar statement, while leaving the door open to the possibility of a new target down the road.
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  “We’ll have to talk about to what extent we can do more on defense. We presented the current situation. But considering the discussion among the European allies, not only the Americans, I think we need to ask ourselves consistently what more we can do,” she said.
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  NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg later told CNN that member states reaffirmed their commitment to the two percent of GDP target. He emphasized that NATO states should strive to invest more in defense, but stopped short of confirming Trump’s claim that the alliance had agreed to the four percent goal.
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