Trump claims win after threatening to quit NATO during tumultuous summit

U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday claimed he had made victories over burden sharing and defense spending during the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), though reports from inside the NATO headquarters in Brussels suggested chaos and turmoil.


Before leaving on Thursday for a visit to the United Kingdom, Trump called U.S. commitment to the alliance "very strong," and referred to the two-day summit as "fantastic" characterized by "a great collegial spirit".

"NATO is much stronger now than it was two days ago," President Trump said. He claimed in a press conference that "Yesterday I let allies know I was extremely unhappy with what was happening."

On Thursday, the American president was reported to have arrived late at a closed session Thursday morning, on the second day of the summit, and disrupted talks with the Presidents of Ukraine and Georgia regarding the accession of their nations to NATO, in order to slam allies on defense spending shortfalls. The Ukranian and Georgian leaders were asked to leave, since burden sharing is a purely internal NATO issue.

Trump is reported to have spoken of "grave consequences" if allies did not meet their 2 percent of GDP defense spending targets, saying that the United States could "go our own way" if his demands were not met.
 (chinamedia)
 13/7/18
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