NATO follows Trump: Five percentage destination decided

Each member committed

NATO follows Trump: Five percentage destination decided

The NATO countries massively raise their defense spending on pressure from US President Donald Trump. Does that ensure the cohesion of the military alliance?

NATO’s member countries have undertaken at the summit in Haag to significantly increase their defense spending. In the future, Member States will be five percent of their gross domestic product in defense and security annually from 2035-more than twice as much as in the previous two percent target.

The step takes place against the background of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and under the pressure of US President Donald Trump. In the joint declaration of final, the heads of state and government emphasized their unity and commitment to the transatlantic alliance. Literally it says: “We, the heads of the state and government of the North Atlantic Alliance, have come together in the Haag in order to reaffirm our commitment to NATO, the strongest alliance in history, and to the transatlantic federal government.”

The new targets stipulate that each Member State will in future expose at least 3.5 percent of GDP for “core requirements in the defense area”. Furthermore, expenditure can also be taken into account, such as fighting terrorism and militarily relevant infrastructure such as tank-compatible bridges or logistics ports.

The background to the decision is also the repeated criticism of Trump’s load distribution within NATO. After his election victory, many observers feared that the United States could question their assistance under Article 5 under its renewed leadership. In response to this, it was now expected that Trump was not fueling any further distrust of this core arrangement of the alliance in return to the increased expenditure.

Trump himself rated the new target brand as “huge”. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recognized the influence of the Republican on the agreement. In his opinion, Trump “achieved something that has not been achieved by an American president for decades”.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) made it clear at the summit that Germany was not increasing its expenses for Trump, but in view of the threats from Russia. He said: “Russia not only threatens Ukraine, Russia threatens all of peace, the entire political order of our continent.”

At the same time, significant differences came to light on the subject of Ukraine. Unlike in previous years, no own working session for the war took place. Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj only played a supporting role in the Haag. In the final declaration, solidarity with Ukraine is emphasized, but remains vague: “The allies reaffirm their permanent national commitments to support Ukraine, the security of which contributes to our security.”

On the other hand, Kiev evaluates the fact that military help to Ukraine will be counted towards defense spending in the future – this is not new, but now the practice has also been fixed in writing.

However, some Member States were cautious. For example, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico explained that they did not feel committed to the new output target – despite the signing of the final declaration. Rutte tried not to make these deviations on the central topic. In a greeting to Trump, he emphasized that “everyone has brought” to sign the target brand.

The next NATO summit will take place in Turkey next year. Albania is planned as a host for 2027.