“I think what happened here is Europeans made a lot of commitments that they don’t have any intention of fulfilling—at least in the near term—and this is all about appeasing President Trump to keep him engaged with the NATO alliance.” At the recent summit in The Hague, Netherlands, NATO allies agreed to spend a target 5 percent of GDP on defense in a win for Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed the belief that European NATO allies are not spending enough. Was this a mistake—and can European nations afford to follow through?
CSIS’s Max Bergmann, director of the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, joins the podcast to discuss what really happened at the NATO summit and how defense spending will impact European economies going forward.
