As usual, Donald Trump blows hot and cold. Finally, at the moment, especially the cold. This Thursday, March 6, he once again questioned the commitment of the United States in NATOas well as the solidarity of allied countries within the Transatlantic Defense Alliance. “If they do not pay, I will not defend them,” said the American president, who is not at his first outing of the genre, to journalists from the White House.
Member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “should pay more” for their military spending, he said. “My biggest problem with NATO […]it is that if the United States had a problem and that we called France or other countries that I would not name by saying ‘we have a problem’, you think they would come to help us, as they are supposed to do? I’m not sure … “also launched Donald Trump.
“We are loyal and faithful allies,” replied Emmanuel Macron in the evening, during a press conference after an extraordinary summit in Brussels. The French president stressed that France experienced “respect and friendship” for the United States and their leaders and was itself “in the right to claim the same thing” of the Americans. He notably recalled the contribution of the Marquis de Lafayette to the independence of the United States. “We have always been there for each other,” said the French head of state, also evoking the landing of American forces in Normandy in 1944.
Japan too
European countries have largely delegated to the United States for decades the cost of its security, provided by Washington as part of NATO, and have reduced their military spending. The United States, which devoted almost 3.3 % of its GDP to La Défense in 2024, have criticized the weakness of European military spending for several years.
Donald Trump said in January that he believed that NATO member countries should spend 5 % of their GDP in their defense. This Thursday, he also mentioned, in a critical tone, the defense agreement linking the United States and Japan. “We have an interesting agreement with Japan, we have to protect them but they don’t have to protect us,” he said. “Who makes such agreements?” he continued.
After the Second World War and as it was under American occupation, Japan has an issue with an article according to which it renounces the war. But the country has gradually abandoned its policy of strict pacifism in recent years, increasing its military spending and striving to acquire “counter-offensive” capacities.