Trump may skip NATO summit if Europe fails to meet his demands
Photo: Donald Trump, President of the United States (Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump may skip the upcoming NATO summit, which will take place in The Hague this June. This will happen if European member states of the Alliance do not increase defense spending, Der Spiegel reports.
According to the outlet, the new US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, has been pressing allies at every NATO ambassadors’ meeting to raise their defense budgets to 5% of GDP.
According to journalists, at first, German officials did not believe that the Americans were serious when they demanded such defense spending. However, now Whitaker is taken seriously.
Whitaker also warned that President Trump would cancel his visit to the NATO summit if the allies did not revise their defense spending.
There has been no official confirmation of these claims.
Summit organizers also stated they had not received any confirmation that Trump would skip the event.
Trump's demands
Earlier, US President Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that NATO allies significantly increase their defense spending.
Also, there were rumors in the media that the United States may refuse to defend a NATO ally in the event of an attack if that country spends too little on defense.
