[herghost]

> Europe's defence should not be entirely on the American tax payer

True. However.

The US has wanted to play a major role in Europe for 80 years because it meant they controlled the narrative. This, co-incidentally was favourable to European countries because they could spend their money elsewhere.

Over the past few years the US has decided that it would prefer to play in the Pacific rather than Europe and so has been edging away.

It's true that Western Europe has been slow to respond, but it's also important to acknowledge that Trump just changed the pace of this redirection and so it's not entirely on one or the other side.