While he mentioned the terror attack of 9/11, Donald Trump did not raise the issue of Article 5, even indirectly. “If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves.” “Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defense,” Trump scolded the assembled leaders of NATO. Instead, America’s NATO allies where chastised for their collective failure to comply with a target level of defense spending equivalent to two percent of each member’s gross national product. ![]() It was widely expected that President Trump would give remarks appropriate to the occasion, praising the alliance and reinforcing its unifying principle of collective security. ![]() The memorial commemorated the terror attack of 9/11 and NATO’s response, manifesting the foundational premise underpinning NATO, set forth in Article 5 of the NATO Charter, that an attack against one member was an attack against all. It ended with Trump dedicating a memorial celebrating the transatlantic bonds between Europe and the United States at the new headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels.
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