Political Quotes

“first of all, I want to applaud the Senator from Alaska for his comments. I agree completely with his statements, and I think his amendment making it clear that we expect the 2 percent to be honored by all member states is something that we all should welcome and agree to. I thank you for your leadership. I also thank you for how you have articulated the importance of NATO to our national security. NATO is a transatlantic security partnership that has served our national security interests so well for so many years since the end of World War II. Today, we are going to have a chance to vote to expand the NATO alliance by adding Finland and Sweden. I hope all my colleagues will support that. I will point out that Finland already exceeds the 2 percent that Senator Sullivan is talking about, the percentage of their GDP that they are spending on defense. So I think this is another reason why we have countries that we want to add to the alliance. We have 30 strong now. This will even be stronger with Finland and Sweden being added to the NATO alliance. But what is unique about the two countries that we will have a chance to vote on in a few moments is that they give us added value to our alliance. They make our alliance stronger. It is in our national security interest to include Finland and Sweden. They add value militarily and economically to this alliance. The geostrategic location of these two countries is critically important to our national security.…”