Elizabeth Callaghan: UK correspondent on Donald Trump calling for NATO nations to increase their defence spending

The US says the UK and all other NATO allies must agree to spend at lest 5 percent of national income on defence and security 'starting now'.

Matthew Whitaker, Donald Trump's ambassador to the NATO alliance, made this statement earlier, and claimed these nations needed to make a 'commitment'.

UK correspondent Elizabeth Callaghan explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Elizabeth Callahan is our UK correspondent. Elizabeth. Hello, Hi, they're Hea.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
They're doing well.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Thank you. Can you guys afford five percent on defense spending?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
No? Absolutely not so. Obviously Donald Trump is calling for
NATO nations to spend five percent of its GDP on defense.
We're having arguments in the UK at the moment about
pushing it to three percent. So all of this week.
I s which to you earlier this week about pressure
on the government to increase it to thirty percent to
pay for this big strategic defense review that they unveiled

(00:33):
earlier this week. So Pete Hogsworth has reiterated this again
this morning, taking a message to Brussels where defense NATO
defense ministers are meeting and saying that they want this
five percent. And as they say, the defense ministers are
all meeting, our Defense Secretary John Healy is kind of

(00:56):
trying to get away from the whole percentage at all
by talking about this review that we published this week.
But we've said the three percent would be going up
in the next parliamentary term. Starmers said that, but won't
confirm when. And obviously that's really far away, and we're
up to two point five in twenty twenty seven. But

(01:18):
there's this is another headache really for our chancellor Rachel Reads.
It's trying to balance the books, trying to give money
to you know, lots and lots of different departments, and
I just don't know how this is going to pay
unless there's going to be tax rises even to get
to the three percent.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I mean, you guys could go down the path that
we've gone down, which Argentina has gone down in a
really significant way, and actually cut spending. I mean, I
feel like even the labor government is lining up for
a little bit of a trimbeck on the welfare. Don't
you think.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
That is a brave move there, Heather, You and not
you know, getting pressured. I think there's so much pressure
now from NATO and Trump and you know they want.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
To shot my idea. That's the just shot it down.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's just not gonna happen. I'm afraid.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's a pretty ask for you guys. Yeah, we'll try.
Oh look at what the baby steps on our side.
Don't worry about it. We're hardly there as well. Listen,
how on earth did the scammers actually get the bitter
of the tax authority?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I have no idea. So h and masts are government
tax office and it's been revealed today. This came to
light in a select committee, usually very very dull kind
of committees. Scammers have stolen nearly fifty million pounds from

(02:38):
the tax authority through a fishing scam. So this isn't
a cyber attack. We're hacking. They're very keen to say that,
even though it is kind of a kind of to
be honest. So people use personal information to set up
accounts and then went on to claim tax rebates. So

(02:59):
quite back, quite how forty seven million pounds went missing
without nobody's sort of realizing, you know, they've said it's
a lot of money. It is very unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
But the.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Parliamentary chairs is like, how on earth has this got
to happen? And how are we only hearing about it?
This happened last year, There has been a criminal investigation,
there has been a rest, but this is only really
coming to light now. The press has got a hold
of it, so lots of questions and obviously that's money
that could be going towards our defense.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, there you go, there you go, all welfare, depending
on how you want to split it, Elizabeth, there's a
lot of places, Elizabeth, Thank you has always appreciated. Elizabeth Callahan,
our UK correspond For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive,
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