LONDON — President Trump will announce a small reduction in U.S. contributions to NATO at this week’s meeting of alliance leaders, an international rebuke that diplomats see as a move to boost his reelection prospects.
“It’s about Trump’s catering to his base,” a former senior U.S. official in close contact with European officials told the Washington Examiner.
A NATO member-state diplomat echoed that sentiment, surmising that Trump wants “to send the message to the allies” that they must increase spending, and to have an accomplishment “to show the voters at home.”
The reduction aligns with Trump’s complaint that allies have taken advantage of the United States over the decades, as he has accused other countries of falling behind on their defense spending obligations throughout his presidency. The new cut applies to the contributions the U.S. makes to NATO’s “common budget” — the pot of funding that pays for administrative costs.
“This is about burden-sharing between allies,” a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve brought our contribution down, but the other allies have stepped up.”
The U.S. concern about burden-sharing usually centers on the amount of money each country spends on its own military because the allies have agreed to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. NATO officials are trying to deflect Trump’s ire by prefacing the meeting with new reports on how the allies have increased their spending since Trump took office.
“By the end of next year, European Allies and Canada will have invested well over 100 billion U.S. dollars more since 2016,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday. “I can announce that the accumulated increase in defense spending by the end of 2024, will be 400 billion U.S. dollars.”
The other ally chiefs won’t be surprised by the announcement, because the Trump administration negotiated a new formula for how to divide the cost of financing NATO’s headquarters.
The U.S. currently contributes about 22% of the NATO administrative budget, which totals about $1.5 billion. The reduction, which is expected to be about $100 million, has little immediate practical consequence for the strength of the alliance, sources say. “It is just symbolic,” the allied diplomat said.
But it could have a practical pay-off for the 2020 presidential campaign. “He’s trying to portray himself as doing what he said he would do and being more successful than his predecessors in getting our allies to take more of the burden, to pay their fair share,” the former U.S. official said.
[Opinion: Sensing NATO discord, Putin plays Macron off Trump]
