NATO Countries Emphasize Spending Increase Ahead of Summit With Trump

Bulgaria may temporarily comply with US demands

The upcoming NATO summit, with President Trump in attendance, will almost certainly fall off the rails quickly and center on US demands for other NATO nations to spend more on their militaries.

NATO seems to be trying to preempt this by emphasizing that there is at least some increase in spending on the horizon, even though the vast majority is going to still be below the 2.0% GDP spending ordered by the US.

Trying to emphasize the silver lining, however, is going to center on Bulgaria, which will be temporarily, technically, exceeding the 2.0% figure by buying US warplanes, a one-time purchase.

The US calls for more spending are built heavily around exactly that, however, the idea that a lot of countries would only be able to get over 2.0% by buying expensive US weapons. Bulgaria did, just this once, but it’s not clear how many more warplanes they can be suckered into buying.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.