Trump has widely criticized NATO countries for free-riding off of the United States for protection. But is this claim legitimate?

President Trump’s recent deal with Denmark on establishing military presence in Greenland comes amidst years of his accusations against the Nordic Kingdom’s freeriding off of America’s defense capabilities. These accusations have been directed towards other members of NATO for years, and he has also urged the trans-Atlantic alliance’s member states to radically increase their defense spending. He argues that the United States, being the main contributor, absorbs an unfair share of the cost of defending two continents. And his anti-NATO rhetoric has only skyrocketed since his war with Iran, as support for the war has been strongly limited among the rest of the alliance’s members. But a closer look at NATO’s member states’ accomplishments in building defense systems suggests otherwise.

European member states have maintained formidable militaries even during a historically rare lack of conflicts on the continent. The United Kingdom and France both possess their own nuclear arsenals, as well as extracontinental military bases. And they, along with Germany and Italy, host many of the world’s manufacturers of the highest-grade military equipment, such as BAE systems, Leonardo, and Airbus, producing world-class missiles and tanks including the Meteor and Leopard. Looking at the smaller member states, all Nordic countries except for Iceland have successfully implemented conscription systems that have given military training to significant shares of their adult populations, even while spending substantially less relative to their economies on defense than the USA. Similar systems have been implemented in the Baltic states after the end of their occupation by the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and they top the list of defense spending as a share of GDP in NATO. But the efforts of European countries to bolster their security extends well beyond their own borders.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the largest conflict on the European continent since the Second World War. Instead of leaving Ukraine all alone to fight Putin’s massive armies, NATO’s member states have donated billions of dollars’ worth of aid and weapons to the Ukrainian military. In fact, many have donated considerably more as a share of their GDP and per capita than the United States, with the Baltic and Nordic countries, including Denmark, dominating the top donors using these metrics. Solidarity with the Ukrainian diaspora has also been shown most by the European Union’s member states – most of which are in NATO – who quickly agreed to take in millions of Ukrainians after the war’s outbreak, and continue to host them years afterwards, giving them full access to their social welfare and job markets. Even examining their contributions on a global level, many European NATO members donate far more in aid to less developed countries relative to their GNIs than the USA does, much of which goes towards post-war reconstruction in conflict zones. Despite their small populations, NATO’s European members have massively contributed to the security of Ukraine and the welfare of many more countries that will only curtail social unrest, rather than forcing the United States to completely foot the bill.

If anything, it is the United States that makes unfair demands on other NATO member states for its supposed defense. Only once in history has the organization’s collective defense provision in Article V been activated, and it was by the United States for the 20-year long Afghanistan war. Even after Osama bin Laden had been killed and Al-Qaeda was neutralized, the United States foolishly continued its efforts to nation-build in Afghanistan, ultimately costing NATO members trillions of dollars by the collapse of the internationally recognized government. In addition, many NATO members have cautioned against the United States’ other costly foreign interventions, such as the Iraq War and ongoing Iran war that have failed to improve the political stability of the Middle East, in addition to the Vietnam War. To preserve funds and supplies for defending the homeland, the United States should perhaps take lessons from its closest allies since World War II, rather than continue to ostracize them for dissent.