On Thursday, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appeared on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” with host Maria Bartiromo.
During his time on the show, Stoltenberg had the following exchange with Bartiromo about President Trump’s insistence that participating NATO countries contribute more to the international collaboration:
BARTITOMO: Is this true you and President Trump have formed this very close relationship?
STOLTENBERG: We work closely together because we are concerned about the same things. We’re worried about the rise of terrorism and fighting terrorism, but also the importance of having fair burden-sharing within the NATO alliance. And NATO brings together North America and Europe, and of course, we have to share the burden in a fair way. He has been very clear that European allies and Canada have to spend more and his message is having an impact. All European allies and Canada are investing more, and this is making NATO stronger.
BARTIROMO: And you think they will get up to that 2% of GDP target by what is it, 2024?
STOLTENBERG: Yes, the target is to be there by 2024. More allies now meet the two percent target already. All allies have begun to increase defense spending and the majority of allies have plans in place to be there by 2024.
President Trump has long expressed frustration because of what he sees as a disproportionality among NATO members as it pertains to their financial contributions to the alliance.
During a NATO speech in July 2018, the president stated in part:
For years, Presidents have been coming to these meetings and talked about the expense – the tremendous expense for the United States. And tremendous progress has been made; everyone has agreed to substantially up their commitment. They’re going to up it at levels that they’ve never thought of before.
Prior to last year, where I attended my first meeting, it was going down – the amount of money being spent by countries was going down and down very substantially. And now, it’s going up very substantially. And commitments were made. Only five of 29 countries were making their commitment. And that’s now changed. The commitment was at 2%. Ultimately, that’ll be going up quite a bit higher than that.
The president also tweeted: “All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%!”
According to a December 2019 article from Business Insider, NATO “came to an agreement in 2014 that each member state will increase their own defense spending to 2% of their respective gross domestic product by 2024,” which is the date to which Maria Bartiromo referred during her exchange with Stoltenberg.
A NATO press release from November 29, 2019, shows that from 2014 to 2019, multiple countries in the alliance have significantly increased their contributions in order to meet the 2% threshold.
Among the countries to have reached or exceeded the goal since 2014 are Estonia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and Bulgaria (which rocketed from less than 1.5% “expenditure as a share of GDP” in 2014 to 3.25% in 2019). Other nations such as Turkey, France, and Norway are closing in.
The United States still provides the most, with 3.42% “expenditure as a share of GDP,” according to the NATO report, which notes that 2019 numbers are estimates.
Speaking before a joint session of Congress in April 2019, Stoltenberg said:
NATO allies must spend more on defense. This has been the clear message from President Trump, and this message is having a real impact. After years of reducing defense budgets, all allies have stopped the cuts, and all allies have increased their defense spending. Before, they were cutting billions, now, they’re adding billions.
Stoltenberg later added: “This is making NATO stronger. That money will allow us to invest in new capabilities our armed forces need, including advanced fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, missile defense, and surveillance drones. This is good for Europe, and is good for America.”