US President Donald Trump slaps Germany with $490b bill

  • 27/03/2017
The large bill is believed to have been handed over during their meeting last week (Getty)
The large bill is believed to have been handed over during their meeting last week (Getty)

US President Donald Trump has stung Germany with a $490 billion bill to regain the "vast sums of money" he believes is owed to America.

Trump is thought to have handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel the bill at their meeting last week - and believes his country was short-changed by picking up the bulk of the costs for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) alliance. 

The President is also believed to be eyeing up other countries in the organisation for wads of cash, because the voluntary defence they provide is costing them big time.  

In true Trump style, he took to Twitter to defend his decisions. 

"Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!" he wrote. 

But former NATO representative Ivo Daalder says Germany owes nothing, as it's widely left to an individual country to decide how large its contribution to the military alliance is. 

Newshub.