U.S. NATO ambassador says allies’ defense-spending tensions are ‘growing pains,’ not a crisis

According to CNBC, U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said tensions within NATO over the Trump administration’s push for higher allied defense spending reflect “growing pains” rather than a crisis, ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Whitaker said the goal is for Europe to take over the conventional defense of the European continent, adding that the U.S. is “not going away” but will do less, and he pointed to uneven defense spending among European countries, including “laggards” expected to raise spending over the next decade. CNBC reported that at last year’s NATO Summit in The Hague, allies agreed to a defense spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035, including 3.5% on core defense spending, while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the task is to turn commitments into concrete results as leaders meet in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday.