NATO members boost non-US defense spending

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Europe

NATO members agreed to increase defense spending, according to the military alliance's official statistics report released on Thursday.

NATO Defense ministers gathered in Brussels and agreed to increase defense spending by 4.3% this year, CGTN’s Mariam Zaidi in Brussels reported on Thursday.

The move comes amid US President Donald Trump's criticism of NATO's military spending.

According to an official NATO statistics report, European and Canadian allies had increased their spending by $46 billion US dollars in the last three years that has been used for more missions, heavier forces and more armor.

However, there are still only five allies currently meeting NATO’s benchmark of spending two percent of their GDP on defense.

NATO also signed off on further deployment of forces to Afghanistan to train, assist and advise local military.

The move was in response to requests from NATO commanders who said they need an increase of nearly 3,000 troops. The exact number still needs to be decided.

The increase doesn’t include the expected contribution of nearly 4,000 US forces divided between the NATO mission and US counter-terrorism operations.

The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has made it clear that any troop increase is purely non-combative.

But whether this will be enough to help Afghan forces win the fight against the Taliban remains to be seen.