The French president's office has announced ahead of next week's NATO summit in the Netherlands that Europeans cannot be required to drastically increase defense spending while the US is waging a "trade war."
An unnamed adviser to President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that "when we ask for an effort from the population, it is difficult to wage a trade war at the same time because we must not forget that the people whose daily needs are more expensive because of the trade war are the same ones who are taxpayers and from whom we will have to ask for an effort" for armaments.
Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries are meeting in The Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday, where they are expected to discuss increasing their defense and security spending to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP): 3,5 percent for military spending and 1,5 percent for security spending in the broadest sense.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte initially proposed postponing it to 2032, and several countries consider that deadline unrealistic, "so that the goal is being discussed within the Alliance until 2035" and "with a mid-term review clause in 2029," the French president's office announced, adding that a proposal to make that year 2035 will be on the table.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said today that spending five percent of GDP on defense is "unreasonable."
Until now, the defense spending requirement for NATO members has been two percent of GDP, and it has taken some countries years to reach that.
US President Donald Trump is insisting that European allies do more to take responsibility for their own security.
"This increase must happen not because someone is asking us to, but because we owe it to ourselves. Europeans have been, in a way, stowaways for a long time" in the area of security, alongside the US, said Macron's adviser.
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