Trump says North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members have agreed to spending increases

New Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt backed Mr Trump's demand for our allies to pay more.

In the same breath, he sounded a strongly conciliatory tone with the Russian leader despite the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Putin not only meddled in the 2016 elections to help Trump but also continues his cyberwar efforts going into the 2018 mid-terms.

"Dear @realDonaldTrump. US doesn't have and won't have a better ally than EU".

In preparing for his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump has provoked a rare agreement among Democrats and Republicans alarmed by the possibility of a cozy meeting.

The President singled out Germany for particular criticism over low spending, accusing the nation of being a "captive" of Russian Federation because of a multibillion-dollar pipeline deal.

The sit-down will mark Putin's first interview with Wallace since September 2005 and his first interview with US media since June 2017. But not before Merkel and other top officials in the German government had publicly fired back at Trump's breakfast diatribe.

"President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations".

DONALD Trump sowed chaos in Brussels as he demanded other nations massively increase their spending, triggering an emergency budget meeting.

"We are increasing our defence budget".

At NATO's 2014 summit in Wales, in the face of new Russian aggression and the annexation of Crimea, the allies had pledged to increase investments in defence and move towards investing 2 per cent of their GDP in collective security. The figure is non-binding, and the goal was to reach it by 2024, not immediately. "It's not just the issue of re-routing Russian gas via the Baltic Sea, it's also a question of what to do with the Groningen field's decline and in general the decline of imports the Netherlands", Kokin said, referring to the Dutch government's decision to reportedly phase out gas production at the large Groningen field, which has been damaged by small earthquakes, by 2030. Not acceptable! All NATO Nations must meet their 2% commitment, and that must ultimately go to 4%!

The US president said he would be discussing Syria, the Middle East, Ukraine and nuclear proliferation.

Having lambasted North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members for failing to reach a target of spending 2 percent of national income on defense, Trump told fellow leaders in Brussels he would prefer a goal of 4 percent. "There is a communique that was published yesterday".

"That is all", Macron said. And we stressed our well-known concerns about Nord Stream 2, Sefcovic said at a press conference on Thursday after the EU-U.S. Energy Council held in Brussels.

"Tremendous progress has been made, everyone's agreed to substantially up their commitment, they're going to up it at levels they've never thought of before", Trump told a press conference before leaving for a visit to Britain. Trump: "The additional money that they're willing to put up has been really unbelievable ... "

Trump's assertion that Russia is a competitor and not an adversary is contrary to the judgments of USA intelligence agencies and his chief diplomat, Mike Pompeo, who at his April confirmation hearing to be Secretary of State, said the United States needs "to push back in each place we confront them", referring to the Russians.

But Macron disputed Trump's claims, saying that the joint statement the leaders had signed went no further than what had previously been agreed, apart from setting out how some countries plan to get there. "I'm very consistent", he replied. "I'm a very stable genius". Trump's is scheduled to meet with Putin in Helsinki on Monday.