The White House Communications Agency released an official coin on Thursday to mark President Trump ‘s trip to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit…
The White House Communications Agency released an official coin on Thursday to mark President Trump ‘s trip to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Belgium.
One side of the coin features NATO logo and a depiction of the organization’s headquarters, with the Belgian flag serving as a backdrop. The flip side of the coin includes Air Force One taking off over the White House.
The White House Communications Agency, which is made up of career military officials, releases official trip coins to commemorate some of the president’s high profile trips and meetings with foreign leaders.
The agency most recently produced a coin ahead of Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. The coin was released weeks ahead of the visit, which was then scrapped before the leaders again agreed to meet.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said after that coin was released that the White House itself is not involved in making the coins.
«We don’t have any input on the design, the manufacturer, the process, in any capacity,» Sanders said at a press briefing.
Trump’s NATO trip was marked by his repeated calls for allies to increase their defense spending and complaints that the U. S. shoulders an unfair burden in contributing more to the alliance than other countries.
He said at a press conference Thursday that other NATO members agreed to «substantially up» their contributions moving forward. However, he did not provide specifics, only saying that “the commitment was at 2 percent, ultimately that’ll be going up quite a bit higher than that.”
French President Emmanuel Macron disputed Trump’s assertion, telling reporters that countries affirmed their commitment to spending 2 percent of their respective gross domestic products (GDP) on defense by 2024.
Trump departed the NATO summit on Thursday for the United Kingdom, where he will spend the next few days. He will then travel to Helsinki, Finland, on Sunday ahead of a meeting there with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
