>>507995678 (OP)The 5% target is just rhetoric to make it look like he's being super tough on getting other members of NATO to 'pay their fair share'. If the rest of NATO, particularly the European states, actually managed to somehow boost their defence spending to that sort of level and used it to create a broadly unified, well-integrated self-sufficient fighting force you're likely looking at something that's likely capable of mounting a seriously legitimate challenge to global US military dominance. Trump and the rest of the US government obviously don't want that, either it's just empty talk that he's not really taking that seriously or (more likely, IMO) Trump doesn't realise the potential realities of what he's saying.
In either case it's largely academic anyway because for the majority of NATO states that level of defence spending just isn't realistic in the kind of timeframe that Trump has in mind. Even if they actually committed to it Trump probably wouldn't live long enough to see most NATO states hit that target.