Trump urges NATO to boost defence budget amid Ukraine crisis
Donald Trump, during an online address at Davos, spoke about the war in Ukraine. He assured that his efforts for peace are already underway. However, he noted that Kyiv is ready for this. "We should ask Russia," stated the 47th President of the United States.
When asked if there would be peace in Ukraine by next year's economic forum in Davos, Trump replied, "You should ask Russia about that," because Ukraine is ready for it. He also reiterated his previous assessments that far more people are dying in the war than is being reported.
"Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine are now, hopefully, underway. It’s so important to get that done. That is an absolute killing field. Nobody’s seen anything like it since World War II. It’s time to end it," stated Donald Trump.
Later, while participating in a Q&A session with bank and company executives, the politician expressed hope that China, which has great "influence" over this situation, could assist in ending the war in Ukraine. He mentioned that the USA intends to cooperate with China for this purpose.
Donald Trump with a renewed appeal to NATO
"I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago — it was only at 2 percent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along," stated Trump.
He later added, "I insisted that they pay, and they did — because the United States was really paying the difference at that time, and it’s — it was unfair to the United States. But many, many things have been unfair for many years to the United States."
Trump had previously declared that he would seek an increase in military spending by NATO allies, but on Thursday, he said this for the first time in a formal, prepared speech. So far, no country in the Alliance spends the equivalent of 5% of GDP on defence, with Poland being the closest, as it plans to spend 4.7% according to budget plans.
