After Trump's talk of ‘unpaid bills’, how is NATO really funded
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00:00 Donald Trump has long been a provocateur.
00:03 Even so, his comments at a campaign rally over the weekend
00:06 sent shockwaves across Europe
00:08 when he suggested he would encourage Russia to actually attack a NATO ally.
00:14 One of the presidents of a big country stood up said,
00:17 "Well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia,
00:22 will you protect us?"
00:23 No, I would not protect you.
00:24 In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.
00:27 You got to pay.
00:29 Trump's ongoing talk of unpaid bills to the U.S.
00:32 reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how NATO financing works.
00:37 NATO's 31 members have made a commitment to spend at least 2%
00:41 of their GDP on defence by 2024.
00:44 That's money spent on their own defence,
00:47 not bills paid to any other country.
00:50 Currently, the U.S. leads NATO, spending about 3.5%
00:53 of its GDP on defence.
00:56 Ten others have reached the 2% goal, and the others are either
00:59 close to the 2% threshold or say they're moving toward that mark.
01:05 Under Article 5, NATO members have promised to come to one another's aid
01:09 if attacked.
01:10 And with the war in Ukraine still raging,
01:13 Trump's comments have renewed fears in Europe
01:15 that the U.S. would be an unreliable ally
01:18 if Vladimir Putin decided to invade a NATO member country.
01:22 NATO cannot be a la carte military alliance.
01:28 Cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humour
01:33 of the president of the U.S. on those days.
01:35 In the wake of Trump's comments, the chief of NATO,
01:38 Jen Stoltenberg, said he expected the U.S. to remain in NATO
01:41 regardless of who wins the election in November.
01:44 But it's widely thought that Trump would seek to withdraw
01:47 from the alliance if elected to a second term,
01:49 even though the U.S. Congress has taken steps recently
01:52 to make it harder for a U.S. president to do so unilaterally.
01:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]