NATO leaders meet under intense Trump pressure on spending
BRUSSELS — Meeting fellow NATO leaders for the first time, President Donald Trump aggressively challenged them Thursday to spend more on their own defence, putting the alliance under exceptional pressure to become tougher, sharper and newly relevant.
The 27 other leaders looked on in awkward silence as Trump suggested most NATO countries were freeloaders not paying their share for military protection. The other leaders are divided over his spending demands, as well as over how much intelligence to share with Trump’s troubled administration.
“Twenty-three of the 28 nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defence,” Trump said. “This is not fair to the people and the taxpayers of the United States.”
But the threat of Islamic extremism remained a uniting theme as the spectre of Monday’s Manchester concert bombing loomed over the summit at the alliance’s new headquarters in Brussels.