Former UK Secretary of State for Defense: The US demanded higher defense budgets

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00:00But does all of this not just show once again, I mean, this is something we've talked about

00:03in the past, but I mean, there has been a long period of heavy reliance by the United

00:09Kingdom and Europe on the United States. And I just wonder what you think needs to be done

00:13to rectify this. We've heard the British Prime Minister saying they're going to increase

00:17the percentage of GDP that is allocated for defence. It doesn't sound like a huge increase.

00:24Is he doing enough?

00:26Well, first of all, this isn't just President Trump. Every American president has been saying

00:30this for years. President Obama said it in my time when he came to the NATO summit back

00:35in 2014, when we agreed to spend 2%. So, you know, the Europeans now, I think, have had

00:42sufficient shock from President Trump's arrival and his decision to try and get this war ended,

00:49to realise that the bulk of the burden of security in Europe now has to be borne by

00:57Europeans. So we will see, I hope, not just Britain, but other European countries step

01:02up. A third of the alliance, by the way, still doesn't spend the 2% that was agreed 10 years

01:08ago. So the Americans are right to be aggrieved by that. So that's really the first priority

01:14is all of us in Europe have got to switch spending from some of the welfare spending

01:21that we've got accustomed to over to defence.