NATO boss demands huge military spending hike

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has announced that he will propose a new military spending target totaling 5% of each member state's GDP during the bloc’s June summit in The Hague. This would mark a sharp increase from the current 2% floor.

Since assuming office in January, US President Donald Trump has intensified demands that the bloc’s European members spend more on defense. He has repeatedly accused them of failing to shoulder the burden equitably.

According to NATO’s latest report, ten of its 32 members do not even spend 2% of GDP on defense, while the US remains by far the bloc’s biggest contributor.

Speaking during a press conference following a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said that they had “agreed on an ambitious new set of capability targets,” which included “air defense, fighter jets, tanks, drones, personnel, logistics and so much more.”

The military bloc’s chief proclaimed that he “will propose an overall investment plan that would total 5% of GDP” in order to finance the outlined priorities.

Under the scheme, 3.5% of each member state’s GDP would go toward “core defense spending,” with an additional 1.5% of GDP to be allocated each year for related investments, such as infrastructure and industry.

Responding to a reporter’s question as to whether there is any mechanism built into the plan that would help ensure its implementation in the long run, Rutte said that member states would “commit to yearly plans showing the increase each year to make sure that you come to the new target of 5%.”

In early May, Germany’s Der Spiegel reported that the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, had warned member states that failure to agree to the new 5% benchmark could result in Trump declining to attend the summit in late June.

Several weeks earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that NATO only makes sense “as long as it’s a real defense alliance, not the United States and a bunch of junior partners that aren’t doing their fair share.”

Also in April, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned European NATO countries that the “time of the United States... being the sole guarantor of European security has passed.