Speaking at a rally in US state of Florida, American President Donald Trump discussed conflicts with NATO member-states.
"I said you gotta pay… and I took a hit from the press, they said 'Donald Trump was rude to our allies.' Well, they are rude to us, when they don't pay. So, we have a nation that does not pay, then a nation gets frisky with whoever, Russia, [for example]… the nation gets aggressive, we end up in World War III for somebody that does not even pay," Trump said at the rally, Sputnik reports.
The issue of NATO’s funding has been raised repeatedly by Trump’s administration, which stressed that all the alliance's members should respect their NATO budget responsibilities. According to the NATO 2014 Wales Summit Declaration, the alliance member states should pursue the target of spending 2 percent of their GDP to funding NATO within a decade. At the moment, only five countries — Estonia, Greece, Poland, the United States and the United Kingdom — have met the standards.
NATO has been boosting its presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, citing Russia's alleged interference in the conflict as a justification for the move. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in the crisis, saying NATO's actions have a destabilizing character.
