How Trump shook up NATO in his first term as President

Jens Stoltenberg was Nato  secretary-general during Trump 1. The Guardian carries an excerpt from his forthcoming account of his time as Nato chief. It's a terrific read. It brings alive Trump's interactions with European leaders during his first term and how he read the riot act to them on stepping up their contributions to Nato- I didn't know the US contributed 80-90 per cent of Nato's budget!

In May 2017, Trump visited the Nato headquarters. It was a new building that he was to inaugurate. He didn't approve of the expenditure at all:

“Do you really need such a big headquarters?” he asked. “What do you need all these people for?”

I replied that while the organisation itself isn’t that large, member states’ delegations also use the building – it makes it easy to meet with security measures in place, and everyone uses the same cafeteria. I told Trump who had designed the headquarters: architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who also designed the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago.

“I know those people. They’re extremely expensive,” Trump exclaimed. “I don’t understand why you chose those expensive architects. Extremely expensive!”

Later in 2018, Stoltenberg spoke over the phone. Again, Trump did some plain speaking:

Trump had recently met with Merkel, too, and told her things simply couldn’t carry on the way they were. “I said, ‘Angela, you have to cough up. You need to spend 2%.’ She said, ‘Maybe in 2030’ – and she laughed as she said it … She laughed!”

He said the United States was spending 4% of GDP on defence, and covered 80-90% of Nato’s expenses. “And we’re not doing it any more. We’re gonna pay what Germany pays.”

By the end of the call there was no mistaking Trump’s warning: “Look, if we leave, we leave. You need Nato, desperately. We don’t need Nato.”

Trump doesn't believe the US needs Nato; it is the Europeans who need it. And if they need it badly, they had better pay for it. Well, Trump has had the last laugh. Many Nato allies have met the 2 per cent target and the fresh target that Trump has set is 5 per cent.