Page 786 - Commitments News Today

Of course the united states joined the other nato members in this joint statement, effectively saying we commit to fighting terrorism together, increasing defense spending and a range of other commitments, but not securing what he said he wanted, which was to see nato members increase their spending to 4% of their gdp, that up from 2%. that suggestion was really met with a lukewarm response. again, i think youre seeing the disparity between the presidents very tough rhetoric and then the reality...

>> do you feel like given the threats you made about potentially leaving nato and insulting germans suggesting they are totally controlled by russia. do you feel that is an effective way to conduct diplomacy. would you be able to be more specific about the commitments that you secure today with regards to increasing financial commitment? is there an updated timeline and specific countries you could cite because a majority of them are already planning to meet that threshold by 2024. >> no, many o...

Diplomatic resolution to both adversarial relationships. the problem is you dont do that at the expense of alliances that have ensured our survival. >> and we have seen, max, a pattern, the president since taking office walking away from various international organizations, commitments, whether world trade organization, paris climate accords, nafta, says that has to be renegotiated if not done away with. how much trouble is nato in now? >> i think nato is in a lot of trouble, wolf, because of tr...

Disruptive day over at the nato s summit in brussels calling them delinquent and demand to start contributing more money immediately and declared germany in his wards captive to russia with the reliance on russian natural gas. john kirby, what affect does this kind of rhetoric have on americas allies? >> it is not going to shock them. i think they expected trump to be tough on defense spending in particular. what it does is convinces them that they cannot count on u.s. leadership in the alliance...

Same again with the national security issue, number one in the view of nato u.s. allies in europe, which is, of course, the threat from russia. >> is the president playing right into the hands of putin as a lot of his critics are suggesting? >> reporter: in his public comments, really, theres no question. i mean, president putin has one of his main goals has been to not just undermine the west, but undermine the nato alliance. and hes said so in public. just a year ago almost to the day, he said...

Alliance members in 2017 was $917 billion. all right? the united states represented 67% of the total. we spent $618 billion. remember, thats on our own defense. its a separate situation. the president said we pay 90%. he got his numbers wrong, but for a man who loves to say fake news so much, hes never been accused of hewing to the facts. the reason that nato went from 14 to 29 countries was when the ussr fell. many of them are eastern bloc nations and they live in existential fear of russia. ok...

Of ukraine. and there is nothing, for the trade there t has nothing to do with their commitments to nato. and the president can whine all he wants about what theyre doing in the energy sector, but it is an alliance. you saw them come up with a resolution that sports our participation in that election. >> as we have been reporting, he is taking an unusual tone against russia. is it something off message for

Directly to his face by the nato chief, by the french president, by the german chancellor. in private, those comments, those concerns, even more severe. one particular concern is this. they will get in private assurances from senior u.s. officials, military officials, secretary of defense mattis, for instance. assurances that the u.s. remains committed to all of its commitments in europe. the trouble is that those assurances are often contradicted by the presidents public comments. and their con...

The president said we pay 90%. he got his numbers wrong, but for a man who loves to say fake news so much, hes never been accused of hewing to the facts. the reason that nato went from 14 to 29 countries was when the ussr fell. many of them are eastern bloc nations and they live in existential fear of russia. okay. so what trump says about lacks commitments from these other statements, its true. they need to improve. they havent been paying their share. but to shake the foundation of the organiz...

But they have to start paying their fair share. if you start looking at the total contributions, the united states represents two-thirds of that. all we are doing is asking many of these countries to give, there are only five or 29 nations that are currently meeting their spending. so theres a lot of room to improve the commitments that they are making to this alliance, and i think the president has stressed thats rightfully, and it seems like he is getting the desired response. more of those co...