U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States' commitment to NATO "remains very strong" after a summit in Brussels at which he said allies had made unprecedented commitments to increase spending on their own defense.
"NATO is much stronger now than it was two days ago," Trump told reporters, describing an unscheduled crisis meeting of the 29 alliance leaders on Thursday morning as "fantastic" and having "a great collegial spirit."
The crisis meeting came amid reports that Trump threated to pull out of NATO over defense spending and after he he fired off more NATO criticism in a pair of Twitter posts.
Asked about whether he could unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from NATO without congressional approval, Trump said, "I think I probably can." But he immediately dismissed such a move as unnecessary.
Trump said he told "people" that he would be "very unhappy" if they didn't increase their commitments. The U.S. has been paying "probably 90 percent of the costs of NATO," he claimed.
Trump adds that he was "extremely unhappy with what was happening and they have substantially upped their commitment."
NATO had no immediate comment.
Trump, who once declared NATO "obsolete," said Thursday that "I believe in NATO."
This report contains material from The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and Reuters.
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