By ADRIANA COHEN
What a blessing to finally have a president who's looking out for us, the American taxpayers, versus kowtowing to globalist elites and NATO members who've been exploiting the United States by failing to pay their fair share in military defense spending.
It's no secret that NATO members have, by and large, gotten a free ride as the U.S. has funded 70 percent of the alliance's budget, at a cost of over $700 billion per year -- courtesy of the American taxpayer. For what modern-day purpose? So the U.S. can defend Germany, for example, from Russia while German Chancellor Angela Merkel backs an energy pipeline, Nord Stream 2, between the two nations, which will supply natural gas from Russia's Baltic coast directly to Germany in 2019 -- benefiting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Donald Trump dressed down Merkel this week for the misguided energy deal -- which gives NATO's chief nemesis, Russia, a huge financial benefit -- she could've brokered with the U.S. instead, while we pick up the tab for Germany's defense.
You don't need an Ivy league degree to know that this type of arrangement just doesn't make sense.
In Brussels this week, President Trump tackled the matter head-on. In a shockingly direct manner, he confronted and chastised NATO members who spend less than 2 percent of their gross domestic products on military preparedness while America contributes an estimated 3.5 percent of its much larger GDP.
Thanks to Trump's in-your-face, no-holds-barred leadership the world is slowly getting accustomed to, many alliance members have agreed to ramp up their military spending. Trump told reporters: "What they're doing is spending at a much faster clip. They're going up to the 2 percent level. ... Some are going back (to their parliaments) to get the approval, which they will get, to go to 2 percent. After we're at 2 percent, we'll start talking about going higher. ... Ultimately ... in years ... we should be at 4 percent."
If American voters re-elect Trump in 2020, that target is most likely where we'll arrive.
Until then, what's clear is that unlike his "swampy" predecessors, Trump is looking out for U.S. taxpayers and putting America first -- not globalist foreign elites.
Quite refreshing indeed.