During an interview with “PBS NewsHour” Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent Nick Schifrin that took place over the weekend and aired on Monday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated that there are some NATO members that “are behind the curve” on defense spending and that 18 of the 31 NATO members will hit the 2% target. He also stated that he hopes 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump’s comments on NATO were “to energize us to accelerate the increase of defense budgets.”
Schifrin asked, “I know you’re not going to want to talk about U.S. domestic politics, but I do have to ask about comments made by the former President recently, in which he questioned whether NATO should defend countries that don’t meet the 2% threshold of GDP spending in terms of defense spending. Do you believe the damage has already been done in some ways, that the very questioning of Article V, the idea that the U.S. would come to European defense no matter which European country was attacked inside of NATO, do you think that’s already damaged Article V?”
Sikorski responded, “We heard the Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, reporting to the Munich Security Conference that, this year, 18 NATO allies will be spending at least 2%. Poland, I think, is number one, actually. So, let’s hope that what the former President meant was to energize us to accelerate the increase of defense budgets. We prefer to remember that, under his administration, the U.S. sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.”
Schifrin then asked, “Is 18 countries out of 31, presumably soon to be 32, is that enough countries meeting their 2% threshold?”
Sikorski responded, “Some countries are behind the curve. The flank countries are not. It’s not by accident that, the closer you are to Russia, the more you’re spending on defense.”
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