U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference before departing the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, July 12, 2018. On stage with Trump is National Security Adviser John Bolton.... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference before departing the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, July 12, 2018. On stage with Trump is National Security Adviser John Bolton. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Associated Press) 
 
 BRUSSELS (AP) — The Latest on the NATO summit in Brussels (all times local): 
 
 1:30 p.m. 
 
 French President Emmanuel Macron has denied reports that U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the United States from the NATO military alliance in a dispute over funding. 
 
 "President Trump never at any moment, either in public or in private, threatened to withdraw from NATO," Macron told reporters. 
 
 He said the leaders of the alliance's 29 members met in an extraordinary session on Thursday morning at the request of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. 
 
 Trump has complained that many NATO members are lagging behind in their defense spending. 
 
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 1:20 p.m. 
 
 French President Emmanuel Macron has denied President Donald Trump's claim that NATO allies have agreed to boost defense spending beyond 2 percent of gross domestic product. 
 
 Macron said: There is a communique that was published yesterday. It's very detailed." 
 
 He added: "It confirms the goal of 2 percent by 2024. That's all." 
 
 The summit statement affirms a commitment made in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea that NATO allies would halt defense spending cuts, start spending more as their economies grow, with the aim of moving toward 2 percent of GDP within a decade. 
 
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 12:50 p.m. 
 
 Polish President Andrzej Duda says the debates over NATO spending that U.S. President Donald Trump has triggered are paying off for countries like his on the eastern flank because they have led to more spending by allies on their militaries. 
 
 Appearing to brush off the severity of divisions between Trump and other NATO members, Duda said the important thing for his nation is that new commitments have been made to secure the region near Russia. 
 
 Duda said he would be "shocked" if Trump made any move would decrease the region's security. He noted that he had met with Trump the evening before and they discussed increasing the U.S. troop presence in Poland. 
 
 Duda also told reporters Thursday that the leaders' meetings were confidential and that he was surprised at other leaders who leaked details to the media. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:30 p.m. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. commitment to NATO "remains very strong" despite reports that he threated to pull out in a dispute over defense spending. 
 
 Trump says at a news conference Thursday in Brussels that he told "people" that he would be "very unhappy" if they didn't increase their commitments. 
 
 Trump says the U.S. has been paying "probably 90 percent of the costs of NATO." 
 
 Trump adds that he was "extremely unhappy with what was happening and they have substantially upped their commitment." 
 
 NATO had no immediate comment. 
 
 Trump once declared NATO "obsolete." He says Thursday: "I believe in NATO." 
 
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 12:15 p.m. 
 
 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told reporters in Brussels that "there was a clear commitment to NATO by all" at an emergency session of the military alliance. 
 
 She said that U.S. President Donald Trump raised the topic of better burden-sharing among NATO members again, "as has been discussed for months," and that, "we made clear that we're on the way." 
 
 Trump has several times assailed Germany for not spending a large enough proportion of its gross domestic product on defense. 
 
 Merkel stressed that Germany is NATO's second-biggest contributor when it comes to troops. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:55 a.m. 
 
 Two officials at the NATO summit in Brussels say the alliance is meeting in an emergency session amid demands from U.S. President Donald Trump for all members to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. 
 
 Officials said that non-members of the alliance had been asked to leave the room early Thursday and that everyone in the room had been told to leave their phones outside. 
 
 ___ 
 
 9:50 a.m. 
 
 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is insisting that Georgia will one day join the world's biggest security alliance, despite separatist ambitions in parts of the former Soviet republic. 
 
 Stoltenberg said Thursday: "Georgia will become a member of NATO." He said the 29-nation alliance supports the territorial integrity of Georgia, including its sovereignty over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 
 
 Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in 2008, which led to the regions declaring independence. Russia has since been supporting them financially and militarily. 
 
 Despite Georgia's important contribution to NATO operations, the alliance is unlikely to invite the country in until the conflict with the two regions has been resolved. ||||| BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Donald Trump gave an angry ultimatum to European allies on Thursday, warning a NATO summit the United States could withdraw its support and sparking crisis talks which the U.S. president said produced big new defense spending pledges. 
 
 Other leaders, however, played down the extent to which they went beyond existing commitments to increase contributions to their own defense, as Trump demanded they share more of what he calls an unfair burden on U.S. taxpayers in funding an alliance focused on discouraging pressure from a resurgent Moscow. 
 
 In a closed-door meeting with NATO leaders, Trump said that if European governments did not spend more on defense, the United States “would have to look to go its own way”, according to one diplomatic source present in the room. 
 
 Trump delivered the line after what several sources said was an improvised rant focused on his grievances about transatlantic ties, but appeared to hesitate before issuing his ultimatum, which led to some confusion about what he really meant. 
 
 French President Emmanuel Macron and others said they did not hear in Trump’s warning a direct threat to quit NATO — though the words did cause alarm — and Trump himself later said such a move would be “unnecessary”. 
 
 The early morning drama was part of two days of diplomatic theater in Brussels, as allies tried to shield a post-war world order from his “America first” demands. 
 
 It was unclear anything concrete changed, although NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg spoke of a “new sense of urgency”. 
 
 A month after he walked out of a G7 economic summit amid rows about new U.S. tariffs that have provoked fears of global trade war, Trump was already at the center of a storm from the start of the NATO summit on Wednesday. 
 
 He accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of being beholden to Moscow due to energy imports, while letting Americans pay for protecting Germany from Russia. 
 
 That tension seemed to calm during a gala dinner but that did not last. Trump tweeted out more of his anger overnight, saying billions of dollars in new spending by NATO allies since last year “isn’t nearly enough”. 
 
 TRUMP DEMANDS 
 
 When the summit resumed for a session with the leaders of non-members Ukraine and Georgia, Trump failed to appear for nearly an hour, officials said. And when he did, he soon used his turn to speak to stray from the scheduled topic and to return to his budget complaints in even stronger language. 
 
 People present said he raged that allies, notably Germany, did not make vast increases in their defense budgets. Pledges to spend 2 percent of national income on defense by 2024 must be met by January, he said — a dizzying idea for many countries which currently spend just half that. 
 
 Another NATO diplomat said Trump trampled on protocol by pointing at some leaders he said were not spending enough and addressing Merkel by her first name, referring to her as “you, Angela”. 
 
 Stoltenberg, stepping in — not for the first time — as peacemaker between Trump and the other 28, called a special closed-door session, the first in a decade, with most officials and the invited guests ushered out, to allow the alliance’s principal leaders to remonstrate with Trump. 
 
 Merkel, facing domestic political opposition to pushing defense spending up from 1.2 percent of GDP, said she explained to Trump how much was already being done. NATO has spent an extra $90 billion on defense since 2015, after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. 
 
 Macron said he had just agreed a 2019 budget with parliament so changing it was unrealistic — a point Trump later said he had accepted though he still expected all members to hit the 2 percent target in the next years, and then possibly double that. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he holds a news conference after participating in the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium July 12, 2018. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause 
 
 “I let them know that I was extremely unhappy,” an ebullient Trump told reporters afterwards. But he added that the talks had ended on good terms: “Everybody in that room got along and they agreed to pay more and they agreed to pay it more quickly.” 
 
 In a characteristically freewheeling news conference at NATO headquarters, covering his impending visit to Britain, talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Iran, China, and his father and mother’s European roots, Trump also returned to a favored theme. He linked calls for higher defense spending to complaints about Germany’s trade surplus and renewed a threat to raise tariffs on EU-made cars if trade terms do not change. 
 
 Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian premier who Trump said gave him “total credit” for a successful summit, told reporters: “We had a very frank and open discussion ... That discussion has made NATO stronger. It has created a new sense of urgency.” 
 
 EUROPEANS CAUTIOUS 
 
 Merkel was among those, however, who gave little indication that anything concretely new had been pledged by those present. 
 
 “The American president demanded what has been discussed for months, that there is a change in the burden-sharing. I made clear that we are on this path,” she said, a day after having to challenge Trump’s suggestion German imports of Russian gas meant that her country was “totally controlled by Russia”. 
 
 Macron said France, which last year spent 1.8 percent on defense, would meet the target by the 2024 deadline. 
 
 For many of those present, Trump’s demands that they move closer to the 3.6 percent of GDP Washington spends on the world’s most powerful military make little sense. “Even if we had the money, what would spend it on?” one NATO diplomat said. 
 
 “In the case of Germany, a lot of European countries would be very uncomfortable with that level of spending,” the diplomat added — a nod to the World War Two aggression that was to lead to NATO’s creation. “It would be armed to the teeth.” 
 
 Slideshow (7 Images) ||||| Story highlights Trump attended NATO meetings Thursday 
 
 He delivered the remarks in front NATO members 
 
 Brussels (CNN) President Donald Trump on Thursday chided NATO member countries directly for not meeting their financial commitments to the alliance and declined to reiterate US commitment to the alliance's mutual defense pledge. 
 
 "Members of the alliance must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations," Trump told the heads of state, who stood silently -- some shifting uncomfortably -- behind him. 
 
 "Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States," he said. 
 
 The call appeared to reveal Trump's continued misunderstanding of NATO members' defense commitments. While Trump argued that many of the allies "owe massive amounts of money from past years," the 2% defense spending benchmark that allies must meet is designed to boost their military, not to funnel money to NATO or other allies. 
 
 Trump's remarks -- paired with his conspicuous decision not to reiterate US commitment to NATO's mutual defense provision, Article 5 -- are likely to unsettle allies who had hoped to hear Trump assuage their concerns about his commitment to the historic alliance. 
 
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– President Trump chided NATO leaders to their faces Thursday for "chronic underpayments" to the organization, the New York Times reports. "Members of the alliance must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations," CNN quotes Trump as saying during the opening of a new NATO headquarters. Per the BBC, Trump said other NATO countries owe "massive amounts of money," and that's "not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States." Only five of 28 NATO members are putting the agreed-upon 2% of their GDP toward defense spending. Trump also didn't recommit the US to NATO's mutual defense pledge, which leaves other NATO countries to wonder if the US will automatically assist them if they're attacked. NATO leaders didn't appear pleased by Trump's speech, and the Times reports the US president got a "chilly reception" from European leaders. Trump reportedly disagreed with his European counterparts on climate, trade, and Russia. Cameras also caught Trump apparently shoving a NATO leader out of the way so he could get to the front of the stage, according to Mediaite. That Trump wasn't more warmly welcomed wasn't exactly a surprise: The speech took place in Brussels, a city Trump once called a "hellhole" following a terrorist attack. And he gave the speech in front of a new 9/11 memorial. The Sept. 11 attacks were the only time NATO has invoked the mutual defense provision—backing the US in Afghanistan—that Trump declined to state his support for.