BRUSSELS _ President Donald Trump used his first NATO meeting to rebuke member nations who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliance's defense spending target, saying American taxpayers unfairly are left to pick up the slack.
Speaking at dedication ceremonies for NATO's new headquarters, Trump noted that the defense budgets of 23 of the 28 members don't equal 2 percent of their nation's economic output, as required, while the United States has spent more on defense in eight years than the other 27 combined.
"Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years," he said. "We have to make up for the many years lost."
By his scolding, Trump was directly delivering to NATO allies the criticism that was a staple of his nationalist campaign for president. But his lecture came at an event intended to be celebratory, showcasing unity and resolve for the nearly 70-year-old alliance: the dedication of its shining, glass-enclosed new headquarters in Belgium's capital.
The ceremony also was meant to call attention to the fact that the only time NATO has invoked its collective defense agreement was on behalf of the United States, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Trump stood beside a section of wrenched steel from the downed World Trade Center Towers, a relic NATO calls the "Article V artifact," to signify that post-9/11 invocation of the NATO charter's article holding that an attack on any one member would be considered an attack on all.
Speaking to reporters before the president arrived, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance had a "long way to go" to meet its goals.
"But it's much better than it was just two years ago," he said. "The reality is that when we decrease defense spending when tensions are going down, as we did after the end of the Cold War, we have to be able to increase defense spending when tensions are going up. And now we see that tensions are going up."
