re: Trump made an interesting point about our GDP and NATO

quote:

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Do we or do we not give money to NATO?

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Jesus Christ. Yes, we do contribute funding directly to NATO. But that’s not the fricking point of the 2% GDP argument that Trump is making. In fact, we contribute LESS direct funds as a percentage of GDP than our allies.

Trump’s argument is that NATO member countries are supposed to allocate 2% of their GDP to military spending. While the US spends ~3.5%, our allies mostly spend around 1-1.5%. This is the issue that Trump is talking about, and it is nothing to do with direct funding of NATO. So all of the people around here saying “just cut it to 2%” are actually arguing that we cut our entire defense budget by something like $300 billion.

Based on the $2 billion in operating costs you referenced, the US spends $440 million to fund NATO. Our total military spending (the number Trump is talking about as % of GDP) is over $650 billion.