UPDATE | Donald Trump cancels his bilateral meetings at NATO Summit as tense special session runs longer than planned

Anca Alexe 12/07/2018 | 11:28

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and United States president Donald Trump were scheduled to have a bilateral meeting at 11 am today (Romania time) as part of the NATO Summit in Brussels, but the meeting was cancelled by Trump a few minutes before it was due to begin.

The US president also cancelled his other bilateral meetings due to take place today at the summit.

UPDATE: The meetings were cancelled because the early morning closed-door NATO session ran for longer than initially planned. The meeting is said to be very tense as Donald Trump accused several European countries of not meeting their 2 percent GDP allocation for defence.

Sources for Reuters say that Trump has not threatened to leave NATO, despite using a very harsh tone towards his allies. However, Politico EU cites sources claiming that the US president did threaten to withdraw from the alliance.