The meeting was supposed to be the prelude to the purchase of Finnish icebreaker ships.But as United States President Donald Trump welcomed Finland’s President Alexander Stubb to the Oval Office on Thursday, he veered into a discussion of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) — and his ongoing feud with one of its members, Spain.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listAt a NATO summit in June, Spain was the most prominent holdout against Trump’s push to increase defence spending among member states.Trump has long sought for all NATO members to commit 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to building up their military assets. But Spain successfully pushed for an exemption at June’s meeting, allowing its expenditures to remain around the previous benchmark of 2 percent.That resistance lingered on Trump’s mind at Thursday’s meeting, as he discussed the US commitment to NATO with Stubb.“As you know, I requested that they pay 5 percent, not 2 percent,” Trump said of the NATO members.“And most people thought that was not gonna happen. And it happened virtually unanimously. We had one laggard. It was Spain. Spain. You have to call them and find out: Why are they a laggard?”He then mused about taking retribution: “They have no excuse not to do this, but that’s all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly.”It was a bitter note in an otherwise friendly meeting with Stubb, whom Trump hosted in March at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Since his first term as president, Trump has wavered in his public comments about NATO, …
