Can NATO allies deliver on promises to increase military spending?

By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Veronica Vela Veronica Vela By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/can-nato-allies-deliver-on-promises-to-increase-military-spending Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio President Trump is departing for a pivotal summit with NATO allies after a year in which he's questioned European countries’ sovereignty and doubted the alliance's very utility. Nick Schifrin reports from Ankara, Turkey, where the NATO summit will take place. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: Welcome to the "News Hour." President Trump has often been a proud disrupter on the world stage, and today was no different. He acknowledged today that he intervened directly with the president of FIFA, which led to the overturning of a penalty that would have banned a star American striker from tonight's World Cup match. In response, some European soccer leaders are questioning the integrity of the entire tournament. And, tonight, President Trump is departing for a pivotal summit with NATO allies, after a year in which he's questioned European countries' sovereignty and doubted the very utility of the alliance. We will get to the soccer controversy in just a moment. But, first, Nick Schifrin joins me from Ankara, Turkey, where the NATO summit will take place. So, Nick, what are administration officials saying ahead of this pivotal summit? Nick Schifrin: Amna, as one senior official put it to me, it is -- quote -- "Show me the money time." It was one year ago at the Hague summit that all NATO leaders pledged to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense, and President Trump declared the U.S.' military presence in Europe was -- quote -- "not a ripoff." That was a good day for NATO. But, since then, it has been a bad year. And the president's national security strategies criticize European -- quote -- "civilizational erasure." The president threatened to seize Greenland, which, of course, is an autonomous part of Denmark. Even this weekend, Amna, as a senior administration official was briefing reporters, the official said that the U.S.' acquiring Greenland would still be -- quote -- "the best way" to meet the defense needs of NATO. President Trump has also questioned the very reason for the alliance's existence after Europeans resisted helping the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. And the Pentagon indicates that they will draw down troops and bases from Europe. And so European officials arrive here both knowing that if they want to placate President Trump -- and that is an if -- they will have to present what Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of NATO, today called clear, concrete, and credible plans to reach that 5 percent goal. As that senior administration official put it to us, the U.S. is no longer interested in burden-shifting. T