Replies to post #94174 on Your Economy (No Politics) (YE1)

[arizona1]

I also don't know where you get that 22% number, maybe it comes out of then air. The article you linked also talks about the 67% that I have been talking about.

From my link.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628137185/fact-check-trumps-claims-on-nato-spending

But Trump's claim that the U.S. is spending 4.2 percent of GDP is at odds with the Pentagon, which puts it at 3.3 percent.

NATO scholar Garret Martin says in any case, U.S. defense needs vastly surpass those of its European allies.

The Claim
At a July 5 rally in Montana, Trump said this about NATO funding:

"We're paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 percent to protect Europe, and that's fine."

Confusing
Trump did not say 70 to 90 percent of what. It's true that if the overall defense budgets of all 29 NATO allies are tallied, the U.S. defense budget accounts for about two-thirds of that total. But as noted above, American defense expenditures are for much more than just protecting Europe.

"There is a common budget that all NATO allies pay into," says O'Connell of NATO's direct expenses for shared headquarters and exercises. "It's about $2.8 billion and the U.S. pays 22 percent of that, not 90 percent."
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628137185/fact-check-trumps-claims-on-nato-spending