The issue of burden-sharing is as old as the alliance itself, and it's been raised repeatedly, obviously by American administrations. There was a particular speech by Secretary Gates, in Brussels, just before he left, under the Obama administration.
It's one of those situations that is getting worse and worse and worse. And it's incredibly difficult to work out whether you should look at equality of sacrifice, equality of commitment, and how you should do it. But the simple fact is that the inequality in sharing of the burden is becoming unsustainable.
Within our organization, we have found that at every one of the meetings we have held on Capitol Hill—and one of our previous presidents made specific efforts to reach out to Capitol Hill—with possibly 50 congressmen and women, the issue of burden sharing was raised. They were saying, “It doesn't matter how much we love NATO, it doesn't matter what we think about it, but my constituents are now understanding that we're paying more than our share of the bill.”
The Wales commitment precedes the Trump administration. The collective view within the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has been very supportive of meeting the Wales commitment, which of course is not just 2% of spending, but 20% on defence investment.
And yes, frankly, you do see people looking for creative excuses and putting other stuff in and talking about whether that's the best measure. It might not be the best measure, but at least it is a measure. Frankly, I think it is one where there has to be movement and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has been very supportive of achieving that commitment. It's vital, in my opinion.