Polish President Andrzej Duda said Trump wanted to highlight "disproportionate" spending on security, adding that the issue was “the subject of a heated, strong debate” at a two-day NATO summit which closed in Brussels on Thursday.
The US spends 3.57 percent of its economic output on defence, according to NATO figures, while most allies are yet to reach the two percent target set at a summit in 2014.
Reacting to Trump’s suggestion that NATO countries should spend twice that amount, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “We should first get to two percent”.
Only five of the alliance’s 29 countries have already reached the target, according to NATO
At 1.98 percent, Poland is just shy of the goal.
But Duda said that was a "temporary situation", while NATO expects Polands spending to reach the goal by the end of the year.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump: “suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of two percent of their GDP on defence spending but that they increase it to four percent”.
“Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations,” she added.
Source: Reuters