President Trump on Thursday called Germany’s decision to boost defense funding a “positive thing” and that he’s fine with talking about leaving American troops in the NATO country.

“I know that you’re spending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money; that’s a positive thing,” Mr. Trump said during his Oval Office meeting with Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

Mr. Trump originally pegged NATO allies’ fair share at 2% of gross domestic product and later raised it to 5%.

Ahead of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said all NATO partners had to do their part in the Continent’s defense.

“The reason I’m here is to make sure every country in NATO understands every shoulder has to be to the plow, every country has to contribute at that level of 5%,” Mr. Hegseth said, noting that he’s confident an agreement will be reached in The Hague.

Mr. Trump also said he was fine with discussing with Mr. Merz the idea of leaving U.S. troops in Germany.

“We’ll talk about that. But if they’d like to have them there, yeah, we have a lot of them, about 45,000; it’s a lot of troops. It’s a city,” Mr. Trump said. “And you think that’s good economic development. They’re highly paid troops, and they spend a lot of money in Germany, but the relationship with Germany is very important.”

American service members have been stationed in over 40 military installations in Germany since the end of WWII.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the U.S. presence in Germany stood at 250,000 military personnel, with as many civilian employees and family members.

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.