European countries have no intentions to ever pay the 2%. For example the Belgian Government reiterated right after the G7 that it had no intention to meet that target and plans instead for 1.3% towards 2030. [1] I work in Brussels and I very often heard members of the European Commission / Parliament tell me how nice it was that the USA was paying for everything defence related.
[1] http://www.lavenir.net/cnt/dmf20170526_01010744/otan-on-ne-d...
Again, though, that's a completely insincere argument. If you are worried that NATO is being weakened and undermined by underfunded member militaries, the corrective course of action is to strengthen those militaries and very much not to announce to the world you might not necessarily honor your treaty obligations if they don't. That weakens it further.
Trump doesn't care what Belgium spends on defense. Trump is crapping on NATO because Trump (or one of his patrons, ahem) wants a weak NATO.
Re:US quits Paris climate pact
by AnimalMuppet on Friday June 02, 2017 @07:38PM
(#14474021)
Disagree. I think Trump is saying, "You'd better be willing to pay for your own defense. If you won't, don't expect us to bail you out," precisely because Trump feels like NATO nations keep expecting America to pay for a strong military so that they don't have to. So he threatens them into a new mindset, where they have to beef up their military because they can't count on America riding in to their rescue any more.
You want to say it's going to backfire? Fine; you're quite likely right. You want to say it's risky? Shortsighted? Yes, and yes. But I don't buy that it's because Trump is in Putin's pocket.
That doesn't sound like disagreement to me. I didn't say anything about "pockets", just that the undeniably biggest benefactor from intra-NATO bitching like this is the nation that literally just invaded another in the region.
The US never gets paid here, so I'll saying it again: Trump is not trying to strengthen NATO here. He's trying to weaken it. You can decide for yourself why.
But this is international diplomacy here. You don't publicly berate and embarrass your allies especially when those countries were already on track to meeting the target.