Of his meetings in Brussels and Britain and with Putin, he said: "Frankly, [the meeting with] Putin may be the easiest of them all - who would think?"
At a news conference recently European Council President Donald Tusk had a warning for Trump over his "almost daily" criticisms of Europe's defense spending."Dear President Trump, America does not have and will not have a better ally than Europe", Tusk said.
Trump's weeklong trip to Europe will continue with a stop in Scotland before ending with a sit-down in Helsinki with Putin, whose country the USA intelligence community has concluded interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win.
But though North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has much to be triumphalist about as it stages its first biennial summit at its new billion dollar headquarters in Brussels, many summit leaders paradoxically appear anxious as they face the alliance's de-facto leader, Donald Trump, who brings with him tough talk on defence spending.
Mr Trump said he "can't say right now" if Mr Putin is a friend or foe, but called him a "competitor".
Germany, a particular focus of scolding by Trump and the region's No. 3 defense spender behind the United Kingdom and France, is projected to remain unchanged this year at 1.24 percent of GDP.
He adds: "I think that getting along with Russian Federation, getting along with China, getting along with others is a good thing, not a bad thing".
"I would like to directly address President Trump, who has for a long time now been criticising Europe nearly daily, for, in his view, insufficient contributions to the common defence capabilities, and for living off the US". Additionally, the president has often taken issue with Germany's trade protectionism, which has resulted in a massive trade imbalance of $64 billion in Germany's favor.
The United States has "a lot of allies".
"My message is that now European allies are stepping up, Canada is stepping up, we are doing more together".
US border patrol questioned fishermen on Canadian waters
The area in question is around Machias Seal Island , an 8-hectare (20-acre) rock island at the Maine-New Brunswick border. Cook, in fact, said border agents have stopped at least 10 fishing boats over the past two weeks.
"Disparaging long-standing allies at the same time as talking up the country that has wantonly seized territory and redrawn Europe's borders by military force for the first time since World War Two is disconcerting to say the least", said Boudreau.
The summit is seen as one of the most hard in years amid fears that Trump will turn even more hostile about an alliance that has underpinned European security for 70 years.
"It's certainly going to be an interesting time with NATO", Trump said.
"NATO has not treated us fairly".
But Mr Trump, who will arrive in the Belgian capital on Tuesday, pinged off a series of combative tweets taking aim at European spending.
"The UK has itself on a number of occasions urged everybody to work towards meeting that 2% target, which we of course do meet and exceed". But we can not be taken advantage of. France is forecast to increase defense spending to 1.81 percent this year from 1.78 percent. "They are increasing defense spending because it's in their own security interest to do so".
On Nato, President Trump's main objection is that a number of member states have not increased their defence budgets to the target of 2 percent of economic output.
Trump's claim about the trade deficit with the European Union being $151 billion is also hyperbolic, as it only takes into account goods, not services.
The trade office's figures say USA imports from the European Union rang in at $592bn- leaving a $91bn goods and services trade deficit.
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