U.S. and allied officials are working hard to choreograph a NATO meeting next week that would be a tableau of unity, and show that the 29-member alliance is fighting terrorism, standing up to Russia and working closely to boost military spending.
But President Donald Trump has already disrupted the mood, and raised the stakes, by warning European leaders in a series of blunt letters that they are not doing their share.
“I understand domestic political pressures,” Trump wrote in a letter on June 19 to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “It will, however, become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries continue to fail to meet our shared collective security commitments.”
In Europe, some leaders have bristled at Trump’s pressure campaign, inserting a potential point of friction in the continuing summit preparations. “I am not very impressed by this type of letter,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, whose government has one of the lowest levels of military spending in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in terms of GDP but which has promised to step up defense expenditures in the future.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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