In a Thursday speech to a favorable crowd in Warsaw, President Donald Trump praised Poland as a model NATO member for paying its fair share toward collective defense and announced a likely sale of a Patriot air defense system to that nation.
“A strong Poland is a blessing to the nations of Europe, and they know that. A strong Europe is a blessing to the West and to the world,” Trump said during the first major speech of his second trip to Europe since taking office in January.
“One hundred years after the entry of American forces into World War I, the transatlantic bond between the United States and Europe is as strong as ever and maybe, in many ways, even stronger,” he added.
Trump, during his campaign for the presidency and since, has publicly harangued U.S. allies in Europe for failing to meet a voluntary goal of spending 2 percent of their respective gross domestic products (GDP) on defense. Poland, which has met that mark, was held up by Trump as an exemplar of a good ally while others who have not yet met the “2 percent pledge” were again called out.
“Americans know that a strong alliance of free, sovereign and independent nations is the best defense for our freedoms and for our interests,” Trump said. “That is why my administration has demanded that all members of NATO finally meet their full and fair financial obligation.”
Poland is in final negotiations to purchase missile defense and artillery systems to protect itself from external threats, most notably an expansionist Russia with which it shares a border. Trump ran down the egregious, bloody suffering Poland has suffered previously from invaders like Russia and Nazi Germany and then applauded the nation’s government for underwriting its own defense.
“Words are easy, but actions are what matters. And for its own protection — and you know this, everybody knows this, everybody has to know this — Europe must do more. Europe must demonstrate that it believes in its future by investing its money to secure that future,” Trump said.
“We applaud Poland for its decision to move forward this week on acquiring from the United States the battle-tested Patriot air and missile defense system,” he added. “That is also why we salute the Polish people for being one of the NATO countries that has actually achieved the benchmark for investment in our common defense.”
Since his election, Trump has made the insistence that NATO members pay more for the common defense of Europe a hallmark of his foreign policy speeches. Though he rolled back comments that the alliance is “obsolete” because it had no formal antiterrorism apparatus, Trump has suggested that U.S. commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty that states an attack on one state is an attack on all is contingent upon the allies paying up.
As he has repeatedly done, Trump again on July 6 falsely claimed that “as a result of this insistence, billions of dollars more have begun to pour into NATO,” he said. “In fact, people are shocked. But billions and billions of dollars more are coming in from countries that, in my opinion, would not have been paying so quickly.”
Money is not pouring into a collective NATO pool because that is fundamentally not how NATO is structured. Each member state pays into a small fund that is used for administrative costs but does not pay NATO for defense capabilities or personnel. Each nation is responsible for funding its own defense, which in turn must be available in part or in whole to the alliance in time of crisis. U.S. presidents since the alliance’s inception 70 years ago have argued that Europe could do more for its own defense, but the only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
During a previous trip to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Trump failed to mention Article 5 at all and did not extoll Russia for threatening the sovereignty of member states along the alliance’s eastern flank. On his second European trip, he spoke directly to former Soviet-bloc nations that are again living under the shadow of Moscow.
“We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes — including Syria and Iran — and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself,” Trump said.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to have a formal, closed-door meeting during a gathering of the G20 heads of states in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7.
In Warsaw, Trump for the first time formally and without being prompted announced continued U.S. commitment to Article 5. Prior to the speech he had only mentioned the collective-defense commitment when asked by a reporter whether the U.S. would come to the aid of an attacked ally.
“Absolutely, I’d be committed to Article 5,” he said then, while taking questions after a Rose Garden appearance. In Warsaw, he articulated that his “tough stance” on NATO members’ defense spending was no indication that the U.S. is not fully committed to the alliance.
“To those who would criticize our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment,” he said.