Why should the U. S taxpayer have to pay to protect Germans from Russia?

@33person where did you find that statistic?

@ianR0ckwell Some mental math.
With common costs of about $2.5 billion in 2017, the U.S. share of about $550 million doesn’t change the picture, since Europe’s share was a much larger $1.8 billion. That gap only weakens Trump’s argument.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-misleads-us-defense-spending-nato-bud/

@Paloma Trumps speech to NATO countries about paying their fair share..

@ianR0ckwell That concerns each NATO member country's level of defense spending. NATO countries are supposed to spend 2% of their GDP on defense, but most of them don't. We spend a lot of money on defense, and a portion of it goes to aiding our allies in NATO. I think it would be good if they each hit the 2% target like they're supposed to, but that wouldn't save us any money. At best, it would free up some of the money we currently spend on NATO to go to other defense-related purposes.

@ianR0ckwell Not really. NATO actually has very little in the way of joint-funded projects, something like 0.003% of the budget. Everything else is spent by member nations on their own militaries, so no nation really spends a great deal on anybody else.

thanks for your thoughtful answer