MSNBC’S RUHLE ACCURATELY EXPLAINS TRUMP’S NATO STANCE

4:00 PM 07/11/2018

Mike Brest | Contributor 1

MSNBC’s morning news host Stephanie Ruhle dove into President Donald Trump’s anger with fellow NATO allies on her show Wednesday morning.

WATCH:

“He has been complaining for years that NATO countries do not live up to their promise of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense,” Ruhle said. “Right now just five countries are above that mark, including the United States.”

The other four countries that have reached their target of spending 2 percent of their GDP are Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia, and Latvia, although they do have an additional six years to reach that mark.

“The United States contributes far more to NATO than any other country, both in terms of its share of GDP and in terms of dollar amount,” she continued. “This year, the United States will contribute an estimated 3.5 percent of its GDP to NATO. That amounts to $706 billion. Get your head around this. That is nearly 70 percent of NATO’s entire defense budget.”

“The United States gives NATO 14 times more money than Germany does, even though the U.S. economy is only about five times larger,” she concluded.

The president has been highly critical of the other countries who have failed to reach this benchmark.

“Many countries are not paying what they should, and frankly many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back,” Trump said during the meeting earlier on Wednesday. (RELATED: Trump Rips Merkel Over Hypocrisy On Russia)