French President Emmanuel Macron today said that NATO's spending commitments remained the same despite US counterpart Donald Trump saying he had forced allies to increase them at a tense summit.
Macron said NATO was nevertheless "much stronger" and that Trump had, contrary to reports, never told his fellow leaders that the United States could withdraw from the alliance.
"President Trump knows that the United States has been able to find NATO at key moments in its history... I think that NATO is a good thing for the United States," the French leader said, adding that the US was a "great partner, a great ally for us."
Trump said there had been "tremendous progress" at the summit after he pushed NATO leaders on the issue, and that NATO countries were going to increase their commitments to "levels they've never thought of before."
But Macron responded that "the communique is clear: it reaffirms the commitment to two percent (of GDP on defence spending) for 2024."
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