The administration of US President Donald Trump intends to reduce the amount of payments to the NATO budget, TASS reported referring to CNN.

According to his sources at the Pentagon and NATO, until recently, about 22% of the alliance’s budget was financed by Washington. The Trump administration intends to reduce this figure to 16%. According to the channel, Germany covers 14.8% of the budget.

One source noted that the US will direct the savings to finance a number of security programs in Europe. Among them are programs in Ukraine and Georgia. According to CNN, other states that are members of the alliance are ready to compensate for the deficit that forms after the reduction of funds allocated by the American side.

The channel notes that Washington’s move is symbolic, because the NATO budget of $ 2.5 billion does not reflect all military spending of the states that are part of the North Atlantic Alliance. From this budget funds are allocated for servicing NATO headquarters, for carrying out certain operations, in the form of joint investments in the defense sector, as well as for other needs.

The publication provides a comment by a NATO representative. He noted that the countries that are members of NATO, agreed on a new formula for the allocation of costs. According to the new rules, the contribution to the budget of the alliance from the European countries and Canada will increase, and from the US it will decrease. According to CNN, the relevant agreements were reached last week.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries for, in his opinion, not spending enough money to support the alliance’s collective defense. The head of the White House demanded from all NATO member countries to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP as soon as possible. During a speech at the alliance summit last year, he proposed that such countries not only fulfill this obligation, but also increase these expenditures to 4% of GDP.