Unleashing in-your-face rhetoric at the NATO summit, President
Donald Trump pressed the falsehood Wednesday that members of the
alliance owe money to the U.S. and took sole credit for higher military
spending by NATO partners — a decision that preceded his presidency.
Trump also misrepresented Germany's energy picture, asserting coal and nuclear power are gone from the mix. Coal remains a bedrock energy source for Germany despite its hope to wean itself from that mineral and nuclear plants have several years of life before they are to be phased out.
Here's a look at some statements from the summit in Brussels:
TRUMP: "Frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up. It's massive amounts of money is owed." — comments at meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In a tweet Tuesday, he said: "Will they reimburse the U.S.?"
THE FACTS: There is no such debt to the U.S. or to NATO. Therefore, no delinquency or question of reimbursement.
He is referring to how much each NATO country spends on its own defense and pressing them to spend more. Doing so would relieve some pressure on U.S. military spending. But there are no IOUs to collect from past years.
Read more: AP FACT CHECK: Trump presses falsehoods about NATO, Germany
Trump also misrepresented Germany's energy picture, asserting coal and nuclear power are gone from the mix. Coal remains a bedrock energy source for Germany despite its hope to wean itself from that mineral and nuclear plants have several years of life before they are to be phased out.
Here's a look at some statements from the summit in Brussels:
TRUMP: "Frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up. It's massive amounts of money is owed." — comments at meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In a tweet Tuesday, he said: "Will they reimburse the U.S.?"
THE FACTS: There is no such debt to the U.S. or to NATO. Therefore, no delinquency or question of reimbursement.
He is referring to how much each NATO country spends on its own defense and pressing them to spend more. Doing so would relieve some pressure on U.S. military spending. But there are no IOUs to collect from past years.
Read more: AP FACT CHECK: Trump presses falsehoods about NATO, Germany
