Donald Trump shrouded Brussels in his personal fog of war as he brought confusion and half-truths to the Nato summit, before claiming an imaginary victory over America’s allies in a conflict of his own making.



As he flew off to the UK on Thursday for the next leg of his European tour, it was left to President Emmanuel Macron of France to correct the record following Trump’s freewheeling press conference in which he claimed to have pushed allies into new defence spending commitments.

“There is a communique that was published yesterday. It’s very detailed,” Macron said. “It confirms the goal of 2% by 2024. That’s all.”

Here is a list of fact checks on some of the US president’s claims on Thursday:

Trump: ‘Only five of 29 countries were making their commitment and that’s now changed’

Trump was still a property mogul and reality television star in September 2014 when the Nato summit in Wales agreed that countries would meet a pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2024.

So far, five countries – the US, UK, Estonia, Greece and Latvia – have reached the target. Germany has lagged with 1.22% despite committing an extra €2bn.

Overall, the US defence budget accounts for 70% of Nato spending. But spending on defence by Nato countries has been increasing since 2015. In 2017, it rose by an estimated 5.28% and in 2018 by an estimated 3.78%.

In the Brussels summit declaration published on Wednesday, nothing changed. Heads of state signed a communique in which they “reaffirm our unwavering commitment to all aspects of the Defence Investment Pledge agreed at the 2014 Wales summit”.



Countries also committed in 2014 to ensuring that 20% of defence spending went on equipment – 15 countries are hitting that target. The new communique says 24 allies will meet the 20% guideline by 2024.

Trump: ‘The commitment was at 2% [GDP]. Ultimately that will be going quite a bit higher than that’

Trump said he believed spending on defence should rise to 4% of GDP, but Nato members have not agreed to any increase on the 2% pledge from 2014, which came after pressure from Barack Obama.

....On top of it all, Germany just started paying Russia, the country they want protection from, Billions of Dollars for their Energy needs coming out of a new pipeline from Russia. Not acceptable! All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2018

Trump: ‘The additional money that they’re willing to put up has been really amazing … Yesterday I let them know that I was extremely unhappy with what was happening, and they have substantially upped their commitment’

Trump suggests he forced a great shift in the space of the past two days. But he did not extract any new commitments. The communique welcomes “four consecutive years of real growth in non-US defence expenditure” and says all allies have started to increase the amount they spend on defence in real terms. Two-thirds have national plans in place to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2024.

Trump: ‘They really stepped up their commitment … stepped it up an additional $33bn … the number could be higher than $40bn’

Trump seems to imply that increased spending on defence by Nato allies came as a result of his combative remarks in Brussels this week and last year. However, the $33-40bn figures appear to be a reference to increased spending since 2014.

Nato’s analysis published this week shows spending on defence by America’s Nato allies increased from $272bn to $312bn in that period. The rate of annual increase accelerated in 2017 and 2018, which Trump claims credit for.



Nato calculates that a total of 22 countries have increased their defence spending as a proportion of GDP since 2014. However, the US is not one of them – its spending as a proportion of GDP may be the highest of all the Nato members, but it has actually fallen from 3.56% in Obama’s final year to an estimated 3.5% under Trump.

In 2011, when the US was still heavily involved in Afghanistan and Iraq, defence spending was at 4.78% of GDP. Nato calculates that based on 2010 prices, US spending on defence has fallen from $726bn in 2011 to $623bn in 2018.

Trump: ‘Yesterday I let them know that I was extremely unhappy at what was happening and they have substantially upped their commitment’

Nothing has changed since Trump arrived in Brussels.

Trump: ‘We have a very, very strong Nato, much stronger than it was two days ago’

There is no empirical measure of this claim for increased strength.