29 May, 2017
Trump has taken a less combative tone since taking office, praising the alliance as "wonderful" and saying a strong Europe is very important to him and the United States. Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, said that the United States president has made the correct points.
President Trump on Friday morning said his first foreign trip has "made and saved" the US "billions of dollars and millions of jobs" as he arrived at his final stop before returning home. "Terrible. We will stop this".
But one senior diplomat said Trump, who left the leaders' dinner before it ended to fly to Italy for Friday's Group of Seven summit, said the remarks did not go down well at all.
Despite the scant mention of the article, Mr Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer insisted "there's 100 per cent commitment to Article 5".
The NATO summit began with a solemn ceremony inaugurating two monuments at the new headquarters: one with two sections of the Berlin Wall that divided the German city until 1989, and another formed from a piece of World Trade Center 1, a steel beam from the 107th floor of one of the towers downed by al-Qaida extremists on September 11, 2001. Trump also discussed Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is the pledge of all NATO members to come to the aid of any NATO member country that is attacked. Trump then stood near Markovic but spoke to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.
Trump has repeatedly called on other countries in the military alliance to share the burden of both spending and action for defense.
Trump announced a review of "deeply troubling" United States of America intelligence leaks over the Manchester bombing, in which 22 people died, and warned that those responsible could face prosecution, the White House said.
Among the G-7 leaders who leaned heavily on Trump to stay in the climate deal was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said: "We put forward very many arguments".
Brussels could be the toughest leg yet of what has so far been a largely trouble-free first foreign trip for Trump, who came direct from a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, and previously visited Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief Jens Stoltenberg was repeatedly asked at a closing news conference about Trump's comments but insisted that while the president might have been "blunt" his message was unchanged - the allies had to do more.
The 28 member nations, plus soon-to-join Montenegro, will renew an old vow to move toward the 2 percent figure for defense by 2024.
Trump seemed to have a much better time in Riyadh than Brussels.
"The greatest task today is the consolidation of the whole free world around those values", he said. G7 leaders are sure to talk more about relations with Russian Federation, and how President Trump's "America First" stance is reshaping US foreign policy.
"Having to reaffirm something by the very nature of being here and speaking at a ceremony about it is nearly laughable", Spicer said after the speech.
