President Trump is now apparently a fan of NATO. After routinely bashing the alliance over the last year, Trump said Wednesday during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that NATO is the "bulwark of international peace and security." "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said.
Trump took credit for NATO's renewed reputation: "The secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism," Trump said, apparently forgetting the fact that NATO fought alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan.
One point on which Trump remained firm was his call for NATO allies to "meet their financial obligations and pay what they owe." Stoltenberg announced that NATO will increase the number of allies spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense from five allies to eight allies by next year — a plan that The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor noted was set in motion before Trump took office.
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