President Donald Trump will try to convince US allies that they should increase defense spending, when he attends a meeting of NATO leaders next month in London, the White House said on Friday.
Trump will attend the NATO meeting from December 2 to December 4, and will also stress NATO’s readiness to respond to terrorist threats and cyber-attacks that target infrastructure and telecommunications networks, his press secretary Stephanie Grisham said. The president and first lady Melania Trump will also attend a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
This week, Trump met at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The US president has long pushed allies to reduce their reliance on the United States for security assistance.
“We are making real progress,” Stoltenberg told AP. “Before allies were cutting defense budgets. Now, they are adding billions to their budgets and, by the end of next year, NATO allies in Europe and Canada will have added $100 billion or, actually, more than $100 billion to their defense spending” since 2016, he said.