; Whereas, at the 2006 NATO Riga Summit, NATO allies declared that we encourage nations whose defense spending is declining to halt that decline and to aim to increase defense spending in real terms ; Whereas, at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, NATO allies reaffirmed their defense-spending goal; Whereas, in 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress—and in the American body politic writ large—to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”; Whereas, in 2014 at the NATO Wales Summit, NATO members officially declared to increase their defense spending to 2 percent of their gross domestic product by 2024; Whereas the Wales Summit Declaration stated that “[a]llies currently meeting the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense will aim to continue to do so” and continued, “Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defense is below this level will: halt any decline in defense expenditure; aim to increase defense expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls.”; Whereas, for the first time since 1990, there have been three consecutive years of increases in NATO defense spending; Whereas, since the end of 2014, defense expenditures by NATO Europe and Canada have risen by $28,000,000,000, representing a 10-percent increase; Whereas, in 2014, only three NATO allies met the 2-percent spending target, while NATO expects eight allies to meet the target in 2018, and 15 allies to reach the target by 2024