NATO members are holding talks about implementing a sharp spike in defense spending as part of a review of the bloc’s targets, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Thursday. The proposed increase would present a positive response to US President-elect Donald Trump's previous criticisms of bloc members, according to an FT source.
Members of the US-led bloc are currently asked to spend at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on their military. The benchmark was widely ignored by bloc members but amid increasing tensions with Russia, the number of those in compliance has risen significantly.
According to estimates released by NATO in June, only eight of its 32 members, including Canada, Italy, and Spain, are now lagging in fulfilling their obligations. The US will have spent 3.38% of its GDP this year on defense, behind only Poland and Estonia, the review said, while the median level is 2.11%.
During their annual meeting in The Hague next June, NATO leaders could increase the short-term target to 2.5%, with a 3% benchmark set for 2030, the FT reported, citing four persons familiar with the deliberations. Confidential talks on the idea started last week but could fail, the sources said.
The discussion was fueled by the re-election of Donald Trump in November, according to the report. A commitment to 3% minimum spend on military projects would also be a “good signal to the US and Trump,” a German official told the British newspaper.
During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump accused European NATO members of being freeloaders, for their failure to spend enough on defense. He has since claimed credit for pushing allies into increasing the military-allocated portions of their national budgets.
Remarks made by Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto last week seem to reflect the deliberations among NATO nations. Speaking to the news agency ANSA, he said his country “will be forced to reach 2%, and maybe even 3%” and that Trump will “surely accelerate” the timing of the hike.
Moscow considers NATO a hostile organization whose expansion in Europe poses a major national security threat to Russia. The stated intention to grant membership to Ukraine and an increase in military assistance to Kiev were among the core reasons for the escalation of the Ukraine conflict to a shooting war in 2022, according to Russian officials.