NATO member states will not heed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, but may agree to increase the current figures.
This was reported by Reuters, Ukrinform saw.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said the allies should spend 5% of GDP on defense – a huge increase from the current 2% target.
Officials from NATO member states said they agreed with the need to further increase defense spending, but did not support the 5% figure, which analysts say would be politically and economically impossible for almost all members of the Alliance.
However, NATO officials told the publication that the new target is likely to be agreed at the NATO summit in The Hague this June. Some expect the 32 NATO members to agree on a goal of around 3% of GDP, after much wrangling.
Poland spends the highest share of GDP on defense among all allies, 4.12% last year. It is followed by Estonia with 3.43% and the United States with 3.38%.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview that he expects change. He said spending could be more than 2%, although he stressed that 5% was not possible. Italy, which spends around 1.5% of GDP on defense, is one of eight allies that falls short of the current target.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said in a comment to RFE that the U.S. itself must first demonstrate readiness for such spending.
This means Washington would have to increase defense spending from about $850 billion to $1.5 trillion, Pevkur calculated.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius noted that 5% in Germany would mean about 40% of the federal budget and that no country can afford that.
Meanwhile, Latvia, which is already one of the few NATO countries that spends more than 3% of GDP on defense, plans to further increase this spending. According to Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds, this level of spending demonstrates an understanding of the threats the world is currently facing.
The United States spends 3.38% of its GDP on its defense. Given the size of the U.S. economy, this is more than 60% of total NATO spending.
According to NATO estimates, the total defense spending across the Alliance in 2024 stood at $1.474 trillion, including $968 billion in the United States and $507 billion in European countries and Canada. The overall average is about 2.71% of GDP.
As Ukrinform reported, last year Donald Trump said that, if he won the election, he would mull forcing allies to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP.
Photo: siklosihirek.hu
