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Trump praises NATO summit, touts higher defense spending and U.S. arms deals
Summary
Former President Donald J. Trump praised the NATO summit in Turkey, pushed allies to raise defense spending to a 5% of GDP benchmark and highlighted new and pending U.S. defense investments and factory expansions, saying they will benefit American jobs and manufacturers.
45th and 47th President Donald J. Trump opened a news conference in Ankara by thanking President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO leaders for hosting a "tremendously successful" summit and said allies had agreed to raise defense spending standards.
Trump said the group reached an "unprecedented agreement to increase the annual defense spending" and called for a new benchmark of 5% of GDP, up from the long-standing 2% guideline. "The benchmark is gonna be that 5% number," he said, adding that many countries had already begun to accelerate their plans.
The former president framed higher allied defense spending as a boon for U.S. manufacturers and jobs. He said "much of that money is being spent on American made equipment" and pointed to announcements at the summit — including what he described as $3,000,000,000 in new defense investments with U.S. companies and plans for a Lockheed Martin Patriot missile sustainment facility in Europe. "All of these agreements directly benefit the U.S. defense industry base," he said.
Trump named a number of defense firms and partnerships, including Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Rheinmetall and startup Anduril, and said bolstered production capacity would cut delivery times for munitions and missiles. He urged building new plants rather than relying on continuous overtime at existing facilities, saying that would allow production waits to shrink from years to weeks.
When asked about Turkey's place in future procurement and the F-35 program, Trump praised his relationship with President Erdogan and said he has not made a final decision but was inclined to treat Turkey favorably because of its cooperation. "He's been a very good ally," Trump said.
The session included exchanges with reporters about implementation and oversight; Trump framed the defense spending increase as a recent summit achievement and emphasized U.S. industry benefits. He presented several large dollar and percentage figures during his remarks; those figures are reported here as statements he made at the conference and are not independently verified in this article.
Trump closed by repeating that "America is back" and thanking NATO leaders and the secretary-general for their work.
