Dinner last night with President Erdogan, and I think it was really, I would rate it a 10, maybe a 12.
A bit of a small palace. It's beautiful. Everything is beautiful.
We've had some very good meetings in particular with Turkey and trade, and now we're meeting with everybody today. As you know, we have a very big meeting with lots of leaders from, I think, every country, right? Every country showed up, NATO country.
Plus we have a couple that aren't in NATO that would like to be in NATO, I guess. But it's been very successful. It's been a fantastic meeting, so I'll be having a news conference after we're finished today at about 4:30, 5 o'clock, and I assume most of you will attend.
But a lot of things have been determined, and some things haven't. Frankly, we attacked very powerfully last night the very dangerous people from Iran. They're sick. There's something wrong with them. We said, 'Go and do your funeral stuff.' And instead of that, they start shooting rockets at ships yesterday. And so we hit them very hard last night. Very hard. I would say 20 to one, 20 times tougher. I told them, every time you hit, we hit. And of course they're dirty players, so they go after everyone, probably including me. I've been number one on their list for years. And they're a bunch of scum. You want to know that? They're scum.
And so we don't like them. I don't like them. And they're evil people. And it's the denuclearization of Iran, and we're going to denuke it. We're not going to let them because they're crazy and they can't have a nuclear weapon. And they go around killing people. They've killed thousands and thousands of our soldiers. They've killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They had the roadside bomb, Soleimani. I took care of him first term. And that was a big thing because I think he probably would be a lot stronger had he been around, because he was a bad guy, but he was an evil genius, but a bad guy. And he was the father of the roadside bomb. The roadside bomb is a bomb that goes on when you're driving your little vehicle around and it goes on and you have no legs, no arms, and no face. And they've killed thousands and thousands of people. Even the SS Call was theirs. You remember that disaster?
So I don't like them at all, and frankly, I think we waste a lot of time with them. I think we should just do our business. Can you imagine they start shooting bombs, actually missiles or ships yesterday, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, a couple of others. And they don't think they know what the hell they're doing, but they're bad people. Very bad people. I think they're incompetent, by the way, because if they were competent, they would have made a deal a long time ago. Like, how about 47 years ago? So they've been troubled for 47 years, and we took out their first set of leaders. We took out their second set of leaders. They want to take out the US leader, me. I'm on every list. I saw things this morning. I'm on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I've been a little bit lucky. But that maybe doesn't last very long because it's the way it goes. But we have great people. But these are evil, sick people. And we have to rid their cancer. They're cancer. And you know what you do? You got to cut out cancer early. Man, that's the way I feel.
And I want to thank Mark. He's been a great secretary general of NATO. I'm not happy with NATO because of what they did with Greenland. And I'm not happy with NATO because of the fact that they didn't want to help us with the number one state sponsor of terror, that's Iran. They were unwilling to help us. Now, in all fairness, I didn't speak to Mark about it. I think if I did, it might have been different, but we didn't need help. But I was really testing. I wanted to see whether or not they'd be there. And the answer is they were.
I spoke to Germany. I spoke to France. Spoke to UK. Spoke to Italy. I spoke to I didn't speak to Spain. Spain is a wasted cause. We don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore. By the way, I'd like you to cut it out. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don't participate. They don't pay. I don't want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please. Including visits. Okay, we don't want anything to do. Watch them come running back. Oh, they'll come running back. They treat this man terribly. And this man's a good man, too. Great man.
They're lucky they have them, but Spain doesn't agree to anything and you shouldn't carry them. I mean, you sort of automatically carry because you're protecting an area, so they're there. So they probably figure they have to protect us, right? But we don't have to. We don't have to trade with them. I don't want to do any more trade with them. All right? Take it immediately. Don't even talk to them. They're hopeless, bad people because they have everybody else going and paying and working, in particular Spain. There a couple of others, but in particular Spain, they're open about it. They're hostile about it. And let's see how hostile they remain when they call up and they please, please, we want to trade with you, sir. We want to trade with you, sir. They make so much money with us. And we're going to see that they make a lot less. I want no business with them.
Other than that, we're having the big meeting in a little while, and I'm going to relate my problems. Greenland is a big problem for us. And the other big problem is the fact that when we wanted them, we didn't want them badly, but we did say if you want to join us, and they all said no. But when they could have, they weren't there for us. And we've been there for them. We spent over a trillion dollars over the last short period of trillion in order to protect these countries from Russia, and it has nothing to do with us. We have an ocean, but it's been a long-term thing and they haven't treated us right. And Mark understands it. He understands that. And we're going to work something out, I think, one way or the other. But we've been treated unfairly. We pay disproportionately. We had a time when we were paying 100%. We were paying 100% of NATO and yet a lot of the countries weren't paying anything.
But there was calls made a few weeks ago. I spoke with the UK and the prime minister said, 'Well, we don't want to help you now, but we'll help you when the war is over.' I said, 'That's not good.' And likewise, I spoke to Germany, they didn't want to help. Spoke to France, didn't want to help. Nobody wanted to help. Some of the very small countries wanted to help because they're the most vulnerable. Told me that that's the only reason they wanted to help. So I appreciate you being here. We're going to be going back together, many of us together. And again, I want to say despite the fact that I'm very upset with NATO, that we pay far, far too much, billions and billions of dollars too much, because it's unfair because we're protecting them. So we protect them, but they're not there for us. Think of it. Doesn't work. But I want to say this is a great leader. They're lucky they have him. It's their biggest asset. You want to know the truth? So Mark, would you say a few words?
Absolutely. And thank you so much, Mr. President. Dear Donald, let me start with Iran. We discussed it last night at the presidential palace. I think what you did, degrading the nuclear capability, crucial for Israel, the region, for Europe, degrading the ballistic missile capability of Iran, crucial for Israel, for the region, for you, for the whole world. And then trying to bring this to a peaceful end. They attacked ships yesterday. I think what you did last night was absolutely necessary. It was a very strong response. And I'm with you on this. It's really important. When it comes to NATO, what you have achieved, and this is a huge win, I just want to say this again. The last two years, Canada and European NATO nations spending $215 billion more in 2024 and 2025 and 2026 compared to 2024, this is staggering, $258 billion. In the meantime, almost 200,000 jobs in the US being supported by all the investments by countries in the United States in a defense industrial base, buying from the defense industrial base from US companies.
So here you see you have been able to really get them to step up to do this. And when it comes to Iran, I know you are disappointed. We discussed it a couple of weeks ago. I would say these are isolated cases. 5,000 planes taking off from European airports in support of Epic Fury. It was Europe as one big platform of power projection for the United States helping with Epic Fury, including countries you mentioned: Germany from day one, France, and many others. We discussed the Bucharest airport which was closed for a couple of days for commercial traffic because they needed it for Epic Fury, and they were.
United Kingdom wouldn't let us use the island for two weeks. So we had to fly back.
No, no. I'm saying you're right, there are isolated.
And Italy was very bad having to do with their bases, as you know, and a couple of others. So it.
But still, generally 5,000 is huge. And you mentioned Spain, even you got Spain to pay 2%. They made a huge step last year. So there are still issues we have to solve, but hey, also even on Spain, I would say they got to the 2%. And I know you have a very strong relationship with the United Kingdom, the king, but also you personally already with Karma, who is now leaving office. He has now also committed to spend another 20 billion extra, 15 billion pounds on defense. So I would argue without you in this chair, this would not have happened. It is of course because of Russia, but also because of you. So grab to win. It's there. You did this. It was the Hake, and now they are implementing it. And on Greenland, you and I made a deal in Davos. I will make sure that that deal is step by step being implemented, that you can deploy if you want the Golden Dome on Greenland. You have your trilateral talks, Marco is leading them from your side with the Greenlanders and the Danes, when it comes to if they would change their constitutional position in the kingdom, etc. But hey.
I mean, just so they, Greenland is very important for the United States, but it's not important for Denmark. In fact, when Denmark was overrun by the Nazis in less than one day, Hitler beat them out in one day, took over. They asked us to take care of Greenland. In fact, we took Greenland and then stupidly we gave it back. We shouldn't have given it back to them because we're the ones that need it. We need it for protection of the world, not just the United States. And it's very important. It doesn't help Denmark, but it helps us. And it's very important for us. And again, they were defeated very quickly. Denmark was beaten in one day, less than one day by the Nazis, by Hitler. And when this happened, they immediately switched it over to us. We owned it. We had it. We were taking care of it. And then we gave it back, which I don't know why. I wouldn't have given the Panama Canal back either, you know. So what do I know? I certainly wouldn't have done that because China's tried to take over the Panama Canal and that's not going to happen. So, but I just, you know, it's interesting. I'm very unhappy with NATO, and yet this man is a great leader and he gets it. He gets it maybe better than some of the leaders.
Also that your allies get it, thanks to you, and that is important. I could not do this without you.
It's too bad Biden didn't do it or Obama.
