With all the high-school level gossip about this week’s meeting of NATO leaders, it’s easy to overlook President Trump’s bolstering NATO by leading the way to secure an unprecedented $130 billion in new defense spending from NATO allies, the largest increase in a quarter century.
This saves money for American taxpayers and puts NATO on a more sustainable path. When President Trump took office, just four NATO allies were spending the minimum required 2 percent of GDP on national defense. But today, nine allies are meeting that threshold.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg thanked President Trump for his leadership and praised the “unprecedented” boost in defense spending.
“We are making real progress, most importantly on burden sharing,” Stoltenberg said. “And your leadership on defense spending is having a real impact… This is unprecedented. This is making NATO stronger and it shows that this Alliance is adapting, responding when the world is changing.”
Stoltenberg in January also said that “President Trump has been very clear, he is committed to NATO… The clear message from President Trump is having an impact…Our NATO allies are stepping up. So this is good news, meaning that we actually see more fair burden-sharing.”
Even as Canada’s leader is coming under fire today for mocking President Trump behind his back, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly applauded U.S. “strength” in holding NATO countries accountable.
“The American strength in ensuring that people are stepping up in terms of their military investment is certainly something we’ve recognized in Canada,” Trudeau said.
Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis in September acknowledged that “Quantitatively, NATO is actually stronger today” under President Trump.
Even though he’s now attacking President Trump’s approach to NATO, running for president in New Hampshire three decades ago, Joe Biden was singing a different tune. He signaled to our NATO allies that the U.S. could reduce the number of troops providing protection to NATO members if they did not “do more.”
Ironically, while Biden was Vice President, NATO allies like Poland were betrayed in service to appeasing Russia, as the The Wall Street Journal reported, when the Obama-Biden Administration canceled missile defense plans in Eastern Europe in 2009.
The front page of the largest Czech daily newspaper summed it up well: “No Radar. Russia won.” In
2012, Joe Biden was re-elected as Vice President after Barack Obama traded away “flexibility” on missile defense to Russia in exchange for political “space” while campaigning for a second term. What did the Russian leader say? “I stand with you.” And it was Biden defended Obama’s quid pro quo.