European ambassadors worried as Trump plans major NATO announcement: report

One of the key components of the NATO alliance is Article V, which calls on all NATO allies to unite and engage in a collective defense. The only country that has involved Article V is the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Now President Donald Trump is looking to put conditions on it.

On Thursday, NBC News reported that "three current and former senior U.S. officials and one congressional official" are saying that Trump's next goal is to impose new mandates on a key NATO component.

In the past, Trump has falsely implied that countries send a check to fund NATO and some countries aren't sending enough, CNN said in a fact-check. He's alleged countries aren't paying their “bills,” “dues” or “NATO fees." The fact-check also recalled Trump saying that the NATO countries “owe us a tremendous amount of money” or that they “owe NATO billions of dollars.”

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“NATO has to pay more,” Trump complained in January. “It’s ridiculous because it affects them a lot more. We have an ocean in between.”

The requirement is actually that NATO countries must spend "2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defence spending to continue to ensure the Alliance's military readiness," the NATO website explains.

Under the plan Trump is considering, the United States may not come to the aid of a NATO ally if that ally doesn't meet the defense spending threshold, the officials told NBC. While Article V has never been invoked beyond the U.S. request, it would break the agreement that an attack on one NATO ally is an attack on all NATO allies.

Trump also wants to increase the percentage of defense spending from 2% to 5%.

"According to NATO’s most recent statistics, last year 23 NATO members’ defense spending exceeded 2% of their GDP. Five of those nations — Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland and the U.S. — spent more than 3% on defense. Poland had the highest percentage, dedicating 4.12% of its GDP to defense," NBC News reported.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) who is the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense and a senior senator on the Foreign Relations panel, told NBC that "several European ambassadors" contacted him with concerns that Trump was about to make a negative announcement about NATO.

When asked for comment, a National Security Council official told NBC in a written statement, “President Trump is committed to NATO and Article V.”

Read the full report here.