NATO weighs U.S. demand to spend 5% on defence

The debate on defence spending is heating up ahead of a summit of U.S. President Donald Trump and his NATO counterparts in the Netherlands in June.

NATO foreign ministers on Thursday debated an American demand to massively ramp up defence investment to five per cent of gross domestic product over the next seven years, as the U.S. focuses on security challenges outside of Europe.

At talks in Antalya, Turkiye, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that more investment and military equipment are needed to deal with the threat posed by Russia and terrorism, but also by China which has become the focus of U.S. concern.

“When it comes to the core defence spending, we need to do much, much more,” Rutte told reporters. He underlined that once the war in Ukraine is over, Russia could reconstitute its armed forces within three to five years.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio underlined that “the alliance is only as strong as its weakest link.” He insisted that the U.S. investment demand is about “spending money on the capabilities that are needed for the threats of the 21st century.”

The debate on defence spending is heating up ahead of a summit of U.S. President Donald Trump and his NATO counterparts in the Netherlands on June 24-25. It’s a high-level gathering that will set the course for future European security, including that of Ukraine.

In 2023, as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine entered its second year, NATO leaders agreed to spend at least two per cent of GDP on national defence budgets. So far, 22 of the 32 member countries have done so.

The new spending plan under consideration is for all allies to aim for 3.5 per cent of GDP on their defence budgets by 2032, plus an extra 1.5 per cent on potentially defence-related things like infrastructure — roads, bridges, airports and seaports.

While the two figures add up to five per cent, factoring in infrastructure and cybersecurity would change the basis on which NATO traditionally calculates defence spending. The seven-year time frame is also short by the alliance’s usual standards.