The President has been critical of other countries not reaching the required spending amount (Picture: EPA)
Donald Trump has criticised defence spending by the UK and other European allies yet again ahead of a NATO summit.
Taking to Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing: US 999 Billion Dollars, United Kingdom, 90.5 Billion Dollars, France, 66.5 Billion Dollars, Italy, 48.8 Billion Dollars, Poland, 44.3 Billion Dollars. Others, including Germany, are MUCH LOWER. (2014-2025) Ridiculous!’
He also shared data related to defence spending estimates by Nato members in 2025 alone, where US funding stood at £733 billion, compared with the £455 billion of all the other members combined.
He later posted: ‘Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one-sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!! President DJT.’
The US president cited national military funding figures to renew his charge that America is bankrolling the protection of other countries without getting any benefit.
Meanwhile, the UK’s top diplomat in Washington said Britain had heard Trump’s call and was ‘putting our money where our mouth is’.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte showed a chart during a meeting in the White House (Picture: PA)
The president’s latest sabre-rattling comes ahead of next week’s meeting of NATO leaders in Ankara, Turkey.
Tensions over defence funding have been further fuelled by the president’s designs on Greenland, which belongs to fellow Nato member Denmark, and the response of allies – including Britain – to the Iran war.
Last month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a review of American military forces in Europe as he questioned if some members were meeting their spending commitments.
Sir Keir Starmer already announced plans to hike defence spending by £15 billion, but Downing Street is unable to say exactly where the cuts required to pay for the increase will come from.
Even with the latest increase, former defence secretary John Healey – who quit in protest at the level of extra military funding being offered – said the UK would be spending 2.7% of economic output on defence in 2030.
He stressed the need to ‘develop a clear, credible funding plan’ to ensure the UK met its Nato commitment to spend 3.5% GDP by 2035.
European countries are trying to increase NATO defence spending (Picture: Shutterstock)
US secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the upcoming Nato summit would probably be the most important in its history, with issues ‘that need to be cleared up and fixed’.
The head of US forces in Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, also warned at the time there had been ‘an unhealthy co-dependence’ by Nato on American forces.
Writing in the New York Post, the British ambassador to the US, Sir Christian Turner, said: ‘President Donald Trump has been consistent, and he is correct: America’s allies must do more for their own defence and for our collective security.’
With America about to mark its 250th anniversary of independence from Britain on July 4, Sir Christian said what began as a bitter conflict had been ‘forged into the deepest, closest alliance between any two nations’.
‘A stronger Britain means a stronger NATO, and a stronger NATO means a more secure America,’ he added.
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