Ahead of the NATO Summit in Brussels next week, President Donald Trump has said he would ask NATO members to start paying their bills as the US is not going to take care of everything.
Trump will travel to Brussels, the headquarters of NATO in Belgium, on Monday where he is expected to call on members of the security alliance to increase their own defence spending.
"I'll see NATO and I'm going to tell NATO -- you got to start paying your bills. The US is not going to take care of everything, Trump said at a campaign rally in Montana last night.
He lashed out at Europe over defence spending and trade, saying the US is paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 per cent to protect Europe, but the European countries are not fair to the US on trade.
"They kill us on trade. They kill us on other things. They make it impossible to do business in Europe, and yet they come in and they sell their Mercedes and their BMWs to us. So we have USD 151 billion in trade deficits with the EU. On top of that, they kill us with NATO. They kill us, he said.
He directly addressed German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a key G7 member, from the rally, saying, "The US pays four per cent of a huge GDP...and Germany which is the biggest country of the European Union, pays 1 per cent. And I said, you know, Angela, I can't guarantee it, but we're protecting you, and it means a lot more to you than protecting us because I don't know how much protection we get by protecting you."