Donald Trump has claimed that he threatened NATO allies that the US would not defend them in case of a Russian attack unless they spent more on funding the alliance.
The former US president shared the geopolitical titbit during his speech to a conservative Heritage Foundation event.
"They asked me, one of the presidents, 'does that mean you won't protect us in case of we don't pay, you won't protect us from Russia?'" Trump recalled. "I said, 'that's exactly what that means.'"
Trump did not disclose which "one of the presidents" he meant. But he said that the North Atlantic Treaty — which requires all members to defend each other in the event of aggression against one of them — would not be honoured if "they didn't pay".
The former president admitted he was "amazed" that the exchange did not "get out" during his presidency. But he stressed that his threat was just a negotiating tactic.
“Now if I said, ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ then why would they pay? So somebody had to say it,” Trump explained.
Sincere or not, Trump said "money started to flow in" after he made the threat.
Trump may have been referring to the lively 2018 NATO summit, when he famously questioned US commitment to the alliance if the members refused to increase their defence budgets to two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by January 2019.