- Title: U.S. President-Elect Trump: NATO should be at 5% contributions
- Date: 7th January 2025
- Summary: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 7, 2025) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, DONALD TRUMP, WALKING TO LECTERN (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "Well, I think NATO's should have 5%. Yeah. Well, you can't do it at two. I mean, 2%. Every country, if you're going to have a country and a regular military, you're at 4%. I think they should be... You know, they're in dangerous territory. I think you should be... They can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%. I'm the one that got them to pay 2%." JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "You know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they've said that that's been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that. But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said, you're going to end up in a war. And it turned out to be a very bad war. And it could escalate. That war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now." JOURNALIST LISTENING TO TRUMP (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "And that's always been... And nobody knows more about NATO's than I. You know, years ago when I first started this, I didn't know too much about NATO, but I got it right anyway. I said, they're taking advantage. I'm the one that got the Secretary General was here, as you know, two weeks ago, saying that if it weren't for me, NATO wouldn't even exist right now. Because I raised from countries that weren't paying their bills at that time, 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills, 21 to be exact. They weren't paying or they were paying a very small portion. And I raised over $680 billion. That was the number he gave. By saying: If you don't pay, we're not going to protect you. And as soon as I said that the money came pouring in." JOURNALIST LISTENING TO TRUMP (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "Nobody said it but me. I took a lot of heat. They said, Oh, that's a threatening statement. Well, they weren't paying their bills. I said, We're not going to protect if you're not paying the bills. So in a true sense, I saved it NATO. But NATO's taking advantage of us." TRUMP LEAVING
- Embargoed: 21st January 2025 18:04
- Keywords: NATO President-Elect Russia Trump Ukraine contribute
- Location: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- City: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,North America,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001149007012025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday (January 7) NATO members should spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense, a significant increase from the current 2% target.
"I think NATO should have 5%," he said addressing journalists at Mar-a-Lago. "They can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%."
Trump has frequently complained that most NATO members are not paying their fair share, and he floated demanding an increase in NATO defense contributions during the campaign.
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