ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday demanded that the allies put forward \u201cclear, concrete and credible plans\u201d to reach the organization\u2019s spending targets at its annual summit in Ankara.<\/p>\n
Rutte made the remarks in the Turkish capital come ahead of a two-day summit starting on Tuesday that comes at a time crucial time for the alliance with the United States scaling down its security role in Europe. Washington has been pressing allies to shoulder more of the spending burden.<\/p>\n
The 32 nations agreed last year to invest 5% of their gross domestic product on defense \u2014 3.5% on their defense budgets and 1.5% on roads, bridges and ports so troops and equipment can move faster in times of conflict.<\/p>\n
Spain endorsed the goal but said that it could fulfill NATO\u2019s security requirements without spending so much. Some countries are still struggling to meet the alliance\u2019s old target of 2% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Asked what would happen to allies that don’t have a clear plan, Rutte said: \u201cIf one or two of still have to be convinced, we have ways to do that.\u201d He did not elaborate. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker suggested last week that the United States does have something in store for those who do not step up, but he declined to say what that might be.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident (Donald) Trump fully expects that all allies will step up immediately and get on the path to 5% and do it with urgency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On spending among European allies and Canada, Rutte said that \u201cthe evidence we see so far is impressive.\u201d He said that NATO estimates that they will invest a combined $258 billion more in defense in 2025 and this year than they have in previous years.<\/p>\n
But the numbers might not be enough to satisfy the Trump administration. Trump has repeatedly lashed U.S. allies over defense spending, and in the past threatened not to come to the defense of any member not doing enough.<\/p>\n
Trump has called for \u201cloyalty\u201d from NATO allies, after some of them declined to allow the use of their bases in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need our allies in NATO to step up and assume leadership roles, and I mean that not only in sort of loud cheerleading but also the moral authority and the moral compass of the alliance,\u201d Whitaker said last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday demanded that the allies put forward \u201cclear, concrete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[127775,18790,145,10462,92101,128632,128631,23681,59373,59371,86159,61262,82,84,83,9611],"class_list":["post-362730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-ankara","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-mark-rutte","tag-matthew-whitaker","tag-nato-summit-spending-rutte","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-32502-ap-online-europe-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}