Trump celebrates making NATO "strong and rich again" after summit a few hours before meeting Putin

President Donald Trump on Monday extolled his success for making NATO "stronger and richer" at a summit last week, just before meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The calls from the leaders of NATO countries thank me for helping to bring them together and get them to focus on the financial obligations, current and future, "Trump said." We had a very good summit that was wrongly covered by much of the media. NATO is now strong and rich! "

The tweet came a few hours before the President attends a much-awaited summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland.

Last week, Trump raised concerns about other countries in the world. 39 NATO set obligations to spend two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on the military.

"What good is NATO if Germany pays billions of dollars to Russia? for gas and energy? Why are only 5 out of 29 countries fulfilling their commitment? The United States is paying for the protection of Europe, then losing billions on trade. Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

He took a shot at Germany over his energy project with Russia, a project vehemently opposed by NATO members in Eastern Europe, which says that it directly threatens the security of their countries since Russia will be able to use its vast energy resources as a means of influencing Western Europe.

The fierce criticism has incited the leaders of NATO to pledge their "unwavering commitment" to boost defense spending.American and European allies have signed a statement stating that they "commit to improving the balance of sharing of Costs and Responsibilities of Membership in the Alliance. "

NATO COMMITTED TO SUPPORT DEFENSE EXPENDITURE AFTER THE STERN WORDS OF TRUMP

– Putin meeting also comes at a special time for the Russian government. , the Justice Ministry has issued indictments accusing a dozen Russian policemen of hacking Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic Party in the 2016 elections.

It is unclear whether Trump will try to put pressure on Putin to extradite In an interview with CBS News on Saturday, Trump said that he "had not thought" to ask Putin to extradite Russian citizens, but later noted that he went "Certainly I'm going" He also blamed the DNC for "allowing himself to be hacked. "

Fox News" Gregg Re contributed to this report.