MILITARY/NATO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Thursday [1-17-19] said the United States is ‘100 percent’ with NATO, days after a report alleged that the president privately discussed withdrawing from the military alliance multiple times over the past year…Trump privately said several times past year that he wanted to withdraw from NATO because of the cost to the United States, The New York Times reported Monday [1-15-19]. According to the Times, senior officials are fearing the president will once again threaten to withdraw from the bloc if other nations’ military spending doesn’t reach the president’s goal. The president has long criticized NATO allies, saying that they have not contributed enough military spending. Trump has demanded that allies pay 2 percent of their GDP, and on Thursday he said that this past year he helped raise $44 billion more with his request.”
–Rebecca Morin, “Trump: We will be with NATO ‘100 percent’,” Politico, January 17, 2019 12:44 pm