United States President Donald Trump has said that NATO should expel Spain from the bloc for failing to meet the five per cent defence spending target.
The US leader, who spearheaded the increment proposal, claimed that him and the rest of the NATO countries agreed to increase their defence budget. Trump reiterated the claim during his meeting with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb in the Oval Office on Thursday.
He said there is no alternative for the countries but to commit to the new spending target “virtually unanimously”. “We had one reluctant nation. It was Spain,” he said, adding that “they have no excuse not to do this.”
“Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly,” Trump said. The United States President constantly raised eyebrows over Spain’s stance on the demands. Spain, on the other hand, has said that their GDP would not allow it to go beyond 3 per cent.
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Since assuming office in January this year, Trump has intensified demands that the bloc’s European members spend more on overall defence.
His demands were met by the bloc in the June summit in The Hague, where bloc members agreed to increase their defence spending to five per cent of their GDP annually by 2035. Trump later praised the meeting as “the most unified and productive in history.” Spain immediately contested the demands and the agreement signed by the Bloc Commissioner, Ursula von der Leyen.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he had already secured an exemption for his country ahead of the summit. After the June summit, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles dismissed the five per cent spending target as “absolutely impossible”.
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