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BRUSSELS — U.S. President Donald Trump opened the NATO summit Thursday by blasting 23 of the alliance’s 28 member states — Canada almost certainly among them — for not spending nearly enough on collective security.

As other leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, stood nervously to the side like wayward schoolboys hoping not to be personally named and shamed, Trump used his brief speech at the opening of the western military alliance’s space station-like new U.S. $1.2-billion headquarters in the Belgian capital to denounce almost all of those around him for not meeting their obligations. Such behaviour was not “fair to the people of the United States,” he said.

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Trump’s criticisms of his fellow leaders on Thursday were identical to those heard from his predecessor, Barack Obama, when he addressed the Canadian parliament last year. But the message has never before been delivered so directly and with such public force as it was by Trump. Adding to the drama, the backdrop for Trump’s speech was a shard of steel from the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, which is to be part of a memorial at the new NATO building.