No. of Recommendations: 1
What previous presidents told NATO members
As president, Trump repeatedly claimed that before he pressured NATO members to increase their defense spending, US presidents did not even ask them to do so. He singled out former President Barack Obama in his comments at the rally on Saturday. After referring to NATO members Trump said he pressured himself, he continued: “And then I hear that they like Obama better. They should like Obama better.
You know why? Because he didn’t ask for anything.”
Facts First: Trump’s claims are false. Both Obama and his predecessor, President George W. Bush, repeatedly pressed other NATO members to spend more on defense, though their public language was less confrontational than Trump’s.
At a news conference in Belgium in 2014, Obama said, “If we’ve got collective defense, it means that everybody has got to chip in. And I have had some concerns about a diminished level of defense spending among some of our partners in NATO – not all, but many. The trend lines have been going down.” In a speech in Germany in 2016, Obama said, “Every NATO member should be contributing its full share – 2% of GDP – towards our common security, something that doesn’t always happen. And I’ll be honest, sometimes Europe has been complacent about its own defense.” In a speech to Canada’s Parliament in 2016, he said, “As your ally and as your friend, let me say that we’ll be more secure when every NATO member, including Canada, contributes its full share to our common security.”
In a speech in the Czech Republic in 2002, before a NATO summit, Bush said that every NATO member needs to make a military contribution to the alliance, and “for some allies, this will require higher defense spending.” Bush and top administration officials continued for the rest of his presidency to push for increased spending. While visiting Romania in 2008, Bush said, “Building a strong NATO alliance also requires a strong European defense capacity. So at this summit, I will encourage our European partners to increase their defense investments to support both NATO and EU operations.”
