say the europeans haven t been carrying their responsibility. so i think she, being the biggest european ally, can make a big difference s inaying that she s going to move to reach the 2% of gdp goal as promised by 2024, but at the same time i think she will lead the chorus in seeking assurances from president trump that he stands by article 5, he has a principled approach to russia, despite his lack of criticism of vladimir putin, and that he sees europe as a strong partner, rather than as a problem in dealing with global problems. ambassador vershbow good to see you. you re welcome. stand by with me for remarks from the president and german kans lorre angela merkel. we ll be back with much more in a moment. earning your cash back shouldn t be this complicated.
allies? well first of all, our allies have a lot of concerns where president trump stands on nato and his relationship with europe, does he still value nato a luninchpin of u.s. security a does he have the allies back, the famous article 5 commitment to come to the defend of any ally is something he stands by without any conditions. i think the meeting is an opportunity for mutual reassurance. can he reassure them on that and allies can assure him that they take seriously his demand that they shoulder their share of the responsibility for the common defense. i think on those issues you re likely to see a positive outcome. but the theresa may comments underscore there s a lot of lingering doubts about the president s approach to allies, and to russia. the same applies to the reports coming out of the meeting with lavrov in the white house two weeks ago. they re wondering whether his failure to criticize vladimir
things that most nato members see as the key reason the alliance exists, and it will cause internal divisions among many of those nations. remember, there are nato alliance members who have membe extremely different approaches to immigration and migration, from the middle east and north africa. there are already tensions in europe over that, and it s something that nato has tried in many ways to not have to take a unified position on. it would be difficult for many of its members. thank you so much for that. i want to go to the statement that was released by president trump on the leaks and the intelligence sharing. the criticism we heard, pointed criticism, from theresa may. the alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. these have been going on for a long time, and my administration will get to the bottom of this. the leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security.
but he didn t take what would be the obvious next step that the nato allies were listening for, as steve said, and say the united states thanks you for that, and remains committed to doing the same, should it ever be required. instead, he kind of added a couple of additional mandates to nato that will probably sound like conditions to some of the people listening to him. he said he wants a greater focus on terrorism and immigration, neither of which are core missions of nato which of course as everyone knows founded as a cold war alliance of europe and the united states against russia, then the soviet union. he mentioned russia, the alliance needs to be firm in pushing back against russia. that is something that will be welcome to all the ears there, but the terrorism and immigration focuses are not
and there you see angela merkel. she is going to be giving or dedicating here one of the many artifacts from major monuments in history. hers from the berlin wall. president trump s will be from 9/11. as he s introduced by the u.n. secretary-general stoltenberg, let s listen. and europe. we saw the strength of that born after the 9/11 attacks against united states. president trump, those attacks struck at the heart of your own hometown in new york, and for the first time, nato invoked our collective defense called article 5, one for all, and all for one. hundreds of thousands of european and canadian soldiers