Remarks by President Trump and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Upon Arriving at Bilateral Breakfast

Chief of Mission Residence Brussels, Belgium

9:10 A.M. CEST

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good morning, everybody.

Q What’s your message to each other?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We have a very good relationship. Because of me, they’ve raised about $40 billion over the last year. So I think the Secretary General likes Trump. He may be the only one, but that’s okay with me.

SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: We will discuss how we can make this summit a success, showing that Europe and North America are standing together. And we will continue to focus on defense spending, because as the President just said, NATO Allies has to invest more in defense, and that’s not exactly what they’re doing. So (inaudible) to discuss how we can make further progress on burden sharing (inaudible).

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Over the last year, about $40 billion more has been given by other countries to help NATO, but that’s not nearly enough. The United States is paying far too much, and other countries are not paying enough, especially some (inaudible). So we’re going to have a meeting on that. And the Secretary General has worked very hard on that. He understands the problem. And hopefully we can get it resolved. This has been going on for decades. For decades. And it’s disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States, and we’re going to make it fair. So that’ll be it.

And I want to just compliment the Secretary General. He’s worked very hard on this problem. He understands it better than anybody.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

END

9:12 A.M. CEST