There are fewer and fewer bad payers within NATO. In 2024, 18 of the 31 member countries of the Atlantic Alliance are expected to reach a level of military spending equivalent to at least 2% of their GDP. A “record figure”, welcomed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a meeting of Defense Ministers from NATO member countries this Wednesday February 14 in Brussels. And to rejoice at having made “real progress”, since “the European allies are spending more”.
And for good reason, the level reached this year is six times higher than that of 2014, and more than twice higher than 2022, when seven countries had reached or exceeded the threshold set at the NATO summit in Newport, in the Land of Wales in 2014. In 2023, only eleven countries have respected their commitments. A real progress, but which remains to be put into perspective. Even today, “some allies still have a long way to go,” recognizes Jens Stoltenberg. More than a dozen still do not meet Newport’s requirements. The announcement by the NATO Secretary General came a few days after strong criticism from former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) of the transatlantic alliance.
Donald Trump’s remarks
In the story – in the middle of a meeting in South Carolina, Saturday February 10 – of one of his conversations with a NATO head of state, the big favorite for the nomination of the Republican Party asserted a new blow of pressure on the deadbeats of the transatlantic alliance. “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ Response from the MAGA cantor (for Make America Great Again, campaign slogan used by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign and echoed by Donald Trump): “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever they want to you. You must pay your debts “. A reference to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that in the event of an attack on a member, each country of the Alliance will be considered as attacked and will take the measures it deems necessary to counter aid to the attacked country.
Immediately, the head of NATO stepped up to the plate, annoyed by the conservative candidate’s statements which “undermine all of our security, including that of the United States.” Candidate for his own succession, Joe Biden also took the opportunity to tackle his rival, calling him a “useful lackey” of Putin on X. “Can you imagine that a former president of the United States could say that? […] No other president in our history has ever bowed to a Russian dictator.” But “the fact that Donald Trump admits that he intends to give Putin the green light for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine and to extend its aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States is distressing and dangerous,” added the President of the United States in a press release.
NATO, healthier under Trump?
Quickly, bitterness spread to the Republican benches. Unsurprisingly, it was Nikki Haley, Trump’s number 1 opponent in the Republican primaries, who launched first. “What bothers me about [le commentaire de Trump], is that we must not take the side of a thug who kills his opponents. “Don’t take the side of someone who invaded a country,” insisted the former governor of South Carolina. And lectured: “We want NATO allies to weigh in with all their weight, and there is has ways to do that without sitting down and saying to Russia, ‘Do whatever you want with these countries’.”
Donald Trump doesn’t care about these sermons. “I made NATO strong and even the radical left Democrats and the fake Republicans admit that,” asserted the former president on his social network, Truth Social, this Monday, February 12. And to detail: “When I told the 20 countries that were not paying their fair share that they had to pay, otherwise they would not benefit from American protection, the money flowed freely. But now that I I’m no longer here to say “you have to pay”, here they are again“. Statements which almost make us forget that the 2% threshold is only a common objective, and has, let us remember, no binding value.