“The president has consistently described NATO spending inaccurately, reflecting blatant ignorance about the way the alliance works. He harped on the issue at a time when the pact’s 29 member states, including Germany, have been significantly increasing defense investments, something that ought to be celebrated.”

Washington Post

While the 2% goal has been in place since 2006, “at the NATO summit of 2014, each member declared that it would try to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense by 2024. This was a goal, not a ‘commitment’; and it was to be fulfilled

if possible) over a period of 10 years, not enforced now… [Moreover] it is absurd to demand that countries falling short of 2 percent should ‘reimburse the U.S.’ This is not how NATO or any military alliance works.”

Slate

Furthermore, “The [NATO] alliance helped guarantee US dominance over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and in the globalized world afterward. But it also has the collective security guarantee of Article 5, under which an attack on one member can be declared an attack on all. Only one country has called upon that clause in its history, and that is the United States following the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.”

CNN

It’s worth noting that “Germany isn’t any more dependent on Russian gas than it was during the Cold War, when no one doubted its loyalty to U.S. interests… [Germany] participates in U.S.-led military operations, such as the one in Afghanistan, where it makes a substantial contribution. Germany also bears a much higher economic cost than the U.S. as a result of Western sanctions on Russia.”

Bloomberg

Counterpoint: “Russia poses basically zero military threat to larger NATO members like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The far larger threat to Europe is ideological. It’s rising authoritarianism… the [defense] money would be better spent on humanitarian assistance and diplomacy… What American liberals should be saying is not that Germany’s defense spending is too low but that America’s is too high.”

The Atlantic