"We are going to spend a lot more money on military… It could be actually… $30 billion more than that, we're going to upgrade our military very substantially," Trump told the Fox News television channel.
"We will be having the greatest military that we ever had by the time I finish." —@POTUS pic.twitter.com/Nt6AouQfsZ
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) February 28, 2017
Trump explained that the money for the proposed US budget spending increases will come from "revved up economy."
"You look at the kind of numbers we're doing, we were probably GDP of a little more than 1 percent and if I can get that up to 3 or maybe more, we have a whole different ball game. It's a whole different ball game," Trump elaborated.
.@POTUS expects he'll be able to get some of the $54B increase in military spending "from a revved up economy" pic.twitter.com/OJKMAs7geM
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) February 28, 2017
On Monday, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official announced that Trump’s budget proposal would boost military and security spending by $54 billion with a corresponding reduction in all other discretionary spending.
Touching upon the topic of NATO member states that have yet to reach the US President's requirement on spending on the alliance, Trump said that the United States will ask reimbursement for the military support of those countries treating it "unfairly," US President Donald Trump said Tuesday.
"We are going to be doing things having to do with other countries because we are treated very very unfairly… We will ask for a form of reimbursement which right now I mean we have countries where we are taking care of their military, we are not being reimbursed and they are wealthy countries," Trump stressed.
On February 20, US Vice President Mike Pence said that the United States was expecting Europe to fulfill their promises on defense just like Washington was doing and that "the patience of the American people will not endure forever."
Only five NATO countries, including the United States, currently meet the 2 percent of GDP defense budget requirement.
In 2016, the United States allocated over 3.6 percent of its GDP on defense.
