Germany \u2060does not have to shy \u2060away from talking up its record on defence spending, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday, when asked about US President Donald Trump calling Germany\u2019s past efforts \u201cridiculous\u201d.<\/p>\n
The issue of defence spending has loomed large as Nato leaders prepare to gather \u200cnext week in Ankara, where Europeans aim to set aside strife with Trump over Iran and Greenland and show they are stepping up to defend the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cGermany is doubling its defence budget within four years. This is the greatest effort we have ever made to strengthen our defence capabilities. In this respect, we have no reason \u2060to shy away from anyone,\u201d Merz told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will state this, with all due modesty, and \u200cwe are doing so as the European Union\u2019s largest member state, bearing a responsibility within Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump took to social media to lambast the defence \u200cspending records of Nato allies this week. \u201cRidiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this \u2060one sided path \u2060when the relationship is not reciprocal,\u201d said one post. In another, he said Germany\u2019s spending was \u201cMUCH LOWER\u201d between 2014-2025 \u200cthan the U.S. or other NATO allies, adding \u201cRidiculous!\u201d<\/p>\n
What are Trump\u2019s motivations for wanting the US to take over Greenland?<\/p>\n
In The Hague last year, Nato leaders agreed to spend 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product on core \u200cdefence items such as weapons and troops by 2035, up from a previous goal \u200cof 2 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany \u2060does not have to shy \u2060away from talking up its record on defence spending, Chancellor Friedrich Merz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36285,4585,18,4255,1446,479,722,5,4732,253,478,40354,40353,92,409],"class_list":["post-48380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-ankara","tag-baltic-states","tag-berlin","tag-chancellor-friedrich-merz","tag-denmark","tag-donald-trump","tag-european-union","tag-germany","tag-greenland","tag-iran","tag-nato","tag-russian-threat","tag-the-hague","tag-us","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}