Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised President Trump’s speech to NATO Friday, saying he was “glad” the president told member nations they need to meet their commitments to defense spending.
“I think it’s particularly important that the president of the United States look them in the eye and talk to them about how important it is,” Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s Defense secretary and a former ambassador to NATO, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“Those countries for the most part are simply not meeting the NATO target and they should,” he said.
Trump scolded member nations at Thursday’s NATO summit in Brussels, saying the countries have not been contributing enough to defense funding.
“This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years — and not paying in those past years,” the president said.
NATO has an official target for how much nations should spend, which is currently 2 percent of a member nation’s gross domestic product.
The threshold is seen as a guideline, and there is no penalty for not meeting the target.
“It’s not really contributing, it’s investing,” Rumsfeld said.
“He sounded like I did 30, 40 years ago when I was ambassador. It has to be done; they are not doing it,” he said.