Macron, Merkel Deny Trump's NATO Spending Claims
"When asked directly whether countries had committed to speed up spending as Trump claimed in his news conference, French President Emmanuel Macron stated the following response, which suggests that plans remains the same as always.
“Everyone agreed to raise spending as they agreed in 2014, and everyone agreed to respect the commitments they made,” Macron said. “We reaffirmed a credible budget strategy that meets our needs.”
Separately, Merkel also struck a non-committal tone and said “we should always be looking at what more we can do" which is roughly 180 degrees away from a firm commitment. Her full quote:
“We’ll have to talk about to what extent we can do more on defense. We presented the current situation. But considering the discussion among the European allies, not only he Americans, I think we need to ask ourselves consistently what more we can do.”
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From comments (obviously an anon): "Nice trick. Trump forced their hand to admit they will not spend more. Well, fuck them. Why should USA defend rapefugeed Europeons? Let them defend themselves. "
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-12/macron-merkel-deny-trumps-nato-spending-claims