World

Tillerson To Insist NATO Allies Pull Their Weight

REUTERS

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Will Racke Immigration and Foreign Policy Reporter
Font Size:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is heading to his first NATO meeting Friday, and he intends to press allies on their meager spending on the military alliance.

A Department of State official said Tuesday that Tillerson will ask foreign ministers how they plan to meet the defense spending goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product, a target required of all members under the NATO charter. He will also pressure NATO contribute more resources to the fight against the Islamic State and terrorism, Reuters reported.

Tillerson is not the first cabinet official to criticize NATO members for their paltry contributions to the mutual defense budget, which gets nearly three quarters of its total funding from the U.S. In February, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told defense ministers that “each of your capitals needs to show its support for our common defense” if they didn’t want to “see America moderate its commitment to the alliance.”

The U.S. has for many years complained that its NATO allies aren’t paying their fair share. Only five member nations–Britain, Estonia, Greece, Poland and the United States–currently meet the spending threshold, according to 2016 NATO figures. President Donald Trump made the issue a central part of his campaign, promising to to reevaluate America’s commitment to the alliance if certain countries didn’t increase their defense spending levels. (RELATED: If Germany Actually Owe NATO, The Amount Would Be Staggering [GRAPH])

“It is no longer sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s deterrence and defense spending,” the State Department official told reporters Tuesday, on the condition of anonymity.

Tillerson’s trip to Brussels comes after the Department of State announced he would forego the meeting of foreign ministers in order to attend a U.S. visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in early April. Amid outcries from Democratic lawmakers that the secretary of state’s absence would be an affront to NATO, the department reversed course and said Tillerson would attend a rescheduled meeting on March 31.

The Trump administration has recently moved to reduce fears that it wants to accommodate Russia at the expense of the longstanding NATO alliance. Earlier this month, Tillerson sent a letter to Senate leadership urging the approval of Montenegro as a full NATO member, despite Russia’s position that any further NATO expansion would be considered a provocative act.

Senators overwhelmingly approved Montenegro’s bid on Tuesday by a vote of 97-2.

Follow Will on Twitter

Send tips to will@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel