Will the press ever make it clear what the NATO defense budget agreement is about? It is not about nations paying “dues” into the NATO budget and never has been. It is about the % GDP that a nation spends on defense. The nominal target is 2%.
The US (stupidly) spends 3% of GDP on “defense”. Other countries spend less than the 2%. But this is all about their national government budgets, not NATO “dues”.
Really, the story is how clueless the President of the United States is about NATO. The man is an idiot and a menace to world peace.
Oh, and by the way, NATO members other than the US have quite generously contributed - both in $$, personnel, expertise and leadership, to NATO operations supported by the US including interventions in the Bosnian Civil War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and LIbya. Thousands of non-US NATO member troops have been killed or wounded in the war in Afghanistan