NATO chief urges increased defence spending as Trump presidency looms

Mark Rutte says to maintain current level of deterrence, 2 percent of GDP spending is not sufficient.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has urged members of the alliance to ramp up defence spending as countries brace for renewed pressure from United States President-elect Donald Trump.

After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula a decade ago, NATO leaders agreed to halt the defence cuts that began when the Cold War ended and move towards spending 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on their military budgets.

Rutte told reporters on Wednesday after chairing a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels that to maintain the current level of deterrence, “2 percent is not enough.”

“We can now defend ourselves, and nobody should try to attack us. But I want that to stay the same in four or five years,” he said.

Countries across the transatlantic military alliance have increased defence spending substantially in recent years, particularly after Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is trying to shore up support for Ukraine before Donald Trump re-enters the White House next month [Johanna Geron/Reuters]

NATO estimated 23 of its 32 members will meet the 2 percent goal this year – up from only three countries who met the target when it was set in 2014.

Since Russia launched its Ukraine invasion almost three years ago, the leaders have agreed that the 2 percent target should be the floor rather than the ceiling for defence spending. On average, the NATO allies combined meet that figure, but about a third of the members still do not individually.

Trump, who takes office on January 20, has threatened not to defend “delinquent” countries. NATO is founded on the principle that an attack on any member must be considered an attack on them all.

In July, outgoing US President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts endorsed the biggest shake-up of the way the military alliance would respond to any attack on its territory by Russia since the Cold War. It was meant to deter Moscow from targeting any of the 32 allies.

Under highly secret new plans, NATO intends to have up to 300,000 soldiers ready to move to its eastern flank within 30 days. The plans lay out which allies would respond to an attack anywhere from the Arctic and Baltic Sea region through the Atlantic and east to the Black Sea.

But senior NATO officials conceded that countries might have to spend up to 3 percent of their GDPs to execute the security blueprint successfully.

Living in ‘very dangerous times’

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Lammy insisted that “the time to act is now.”

“We’re living in very dangerous times,” he said, singling out Russia and its role in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa on top of its war on Ukraine. “We urge all allies across the NATO family to get serious about defence spending.”

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Lammy said he agreed with Trump that the alliance should move beyond its current goal of spending 2 percent.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was on his last visit to Brussels for a NATO meeting before leaving his post, said: “This is a time for every ally to lean in, not lean back.” The US is by far the organisation’s most powerful member.

“A stronger NATO means more capabilities to deter aggression, more effective allies to meet more complex challenges, and the peace and stability that allows our people to pursue fuller lives,” Blinken said.

Rutte also underlined the importance of expanding Europe’s defence industry, proposing incentives to drive companies to set up more production lines and hire more workers to staff them as Western support for Ukraine drains armament stocks.

“We are producing not enough at too high prices, and the delivery is too slow,” he said. “We cannot have a situation where we just pay more for the same, and we see large kickbacks to the shareholders.”