NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte delivered a presentation with visuals touting the effect President Donald Trump has had on NATO defense spending. “I can assure you this is because of Russia, because of the threat, but I’m also absolutely convinced that you being president of the United States, being consistently pushing for something which since Eisenhower has not been achieved, which is the Europeans equalizing their defense spending with the United States, this is your evidence,” Rutte said of the spending increase.

NATO SECRETARY GENERAL MARK RUTTE: Now I want to take you, if you stay here, I go over to these boards here, because I want to show you what this president was able to achieve. And I start with this chart. This chart is about the Trump Trillion. The Trump Trillion shows you the increase Europeans and Canadians are paying into defense since you took office in 2017. Trump 45 plus Trump 47. A total of extra spent by the Europeans and the Canadians of $ 1.2 trillion. When you look at the effect of Trump 47, so the isolated effect of the extra defense spending in 2025 and in 2026, you see almost $ 140 billion extra spent, nominal, on defense by the Europeans and the Canadians. And also this year you will again see an increase by about $ 120 billion, which brings a total in two years of over $ 250 billion. I can assure you this is because of Russia, because of the threat, but I’m also absolutely convinced that you being president of the United States, being consistently pushing for something which since Eisenhower has not been achieved, which is the Europeans equalizing their defense spending with the United States, this is your evidence. Then when it comes to jobs, look here, in total 195,000 jobs being supported by investments. Investments from European companies into the United States, 83,000 jobs supported by that. 112,000 jobs created by the fact that Europeans are massively, about half of all their defense spending when it comes to defense industrial output is spent in the United States. 112,000 jobs. Last year they spent $ 54 billion on U.S. defense industrial output. There is now an order backlog of $ 300 billion. So $ 300 billion of defense spending from Europeans buying this in the U.S. over the next couple of years, which is already on the order book. Last year $ 54 billion, a total now order book of $ 300 billion, totally almost 200,000. These are real jobs, real people. Like you had yesterday when you spoke in Pennsylvania, the people behind you.

RealClearPolitics Videos