As President Trump looks to fix the issues that irk him the most, the issue of NATO defense spending — one of his perennial bugbears — is returning to the fore.

Banners displaying the NATO logo are placed at the entrance of new NATO headquarters during the move to the new building, in Brussels, Belgium April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.

President Donald Trump said NATO countries must sharply increase their defense spending, demanding member states push beyond current benchmarks that many of them already struggle to hit.

NATO countries should increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. It would be a fair approach to reduce the financial burden on the United States, stated US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5% of [gross domestic product], which is what it should have been years ago,” he said in remarks given virtually to the. He noted that “most nations didn’t pay until I came along” in his first term in office.

US President Donald Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, called for NATO nations to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, emphasizing that the United States has been shouldering an unfair burden in global defense spending,