AP, LONDONUS President Donald Trump yesterday took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron over his criticism of NATO, and criticized the other members of the military alliance for being too slow to beef up their defense budgets. It’s very disrespectful.”During campaigning for the last election, Trump described NATO as “obsolete,” but he has since tempered his criticism somewhat. Discussing military funding, Trump insisted that “a lot of countries haven’t paid.”After Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, NATO countries halted their post-Cold War spending cuts and began increasing spending. “You could make the case that they’ve been delinquent for 25-30 years,” Trump said after talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that his nation is open to cooperation with NATO.
