NATO plans to increase defense spending in anticipation of Mr. Trump returning to the White House
NATO member countries are urgently looking for ways to increase defense spending to cope with the prospect of this military alliance's operations being affected if Mr. Trump is elected president of the United States.
According to CBS Radio on April 28, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its member countries are feverishly preparing for the prospect of candidate Donald Trump winning the upcoming US presidential election.
Former NATO chief spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said that Secretary General of this organization Jens Stoltenberg is preparing a new Ukraine aid plan in a way that cannot be affected by political fluctuations.
This plan is valid for 5 years, with a value of up to 107 billion USD. In particular, Mr. Stoltenberg plans to give more direct responsibilities to alliance members outside the US. In particular, European allies will establish a common Ukraine aid fund and increase their level of support. This is to reduce US influence on NATO activities.
Ms. Lungescu commented: "Having a certain predictability is very necessary for allied countries and Ukraine (referring to Mr. Trump being too erratic). Mr. Stoltenberg's plan aims to reduce some of America's burdens on organization, but still maintains a fully supervisory role.
NATO's above move clearly reflects the fear of negative impacts Mr. Trump could bring to the bloc if elected president. Previously, during his presidency, Mr. Trump repeatedly publicly criticized NATO allies for not fulfilling their contribution obligations.
NATO requires each member country to maintain a minimum budget of 2% of GDP. However, by 2023, only 10 out of 30 member countries (other than the US) will fulfill this obligation. Therefore, the former US president is frustrated that the remaining members have a total economic scale equal to the US, but their defense budget is less than half of Washington's - something admitted by NATO's own website.
This view is maintained to this day. Mr. Trump's 2024 presidential campaign team affirmed that he views asking allies to increase defense spending as one of the policies they aggressively pursue. Ms. Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Mr. Trump's national election campaign, stated: "President Trump has forced allies to strengthen NATO budgets by asking them to pay. However, Mr. Joe Biden lies have returned to a path that allows them to take advantage of American taxpayers' money
When Mr. Trump returns to the Oval Office, he will restore peace and rebuild America's strength and deterrence on the world stage." Even in February, the former US president announced that he would encourage Russia to "do whatever they want" with NATO countries that do not contribute enough.
Ms. Lungescu said that the plan proposed by Mr. Stoltenberg will solve Mr. Trump's above problem. In fact, NATO allies are also trying to find ways to increase their country's defense budget. "I think that by the NATO Summit in Washington in July, we will have updated data and see that the defense budgets of countries have increased significantly," Ms. Lungescu predicted.
Former national security advisor under Mr. Trump John Bolton confirmed that the former president almost withdrew the US from NATO at the end of 2018. If Mr. Trump's new term happens, this could completely happen again.
Mr. Bolton wrote in his autobiography released in 2020: "I think Mr. Trump will cause great damage in his second term, the kind of damage that sometimes cannot be recovered. I think he fully intends to withdraw America from NATO. I think that would be a terrible decision for the US and many other parties. That is a very bad prospect for Mr. Trump's second term."
