NATO members will have to bolster their defense spending by “considerably more than 3%” of their GDP, the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said Saturday.
The alliance chief’s warning came just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tore into NATO allies as failing to “take primary responsibility” for Europe’s defense and called for a minimum GDP spending target of 5%.
That amount is a drastic boost from the current 2% mark members pledged to meet more than a decade ago — an amount no member has ever reached, according to CNBC.
“Over the next couple of months we will get convergence” on the budget goal, Rutte told Politico during an interview panel hosted on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. He added the members “will have to prioritize defense over other stuff,” referring to social welfare programs, to reach beefed up defense spending targets.
NATO’s 32 members will come to an agreement on the new defense spending objectives when they meet for a June summit in the Hague, Netherlands, Rutte said.
Rutte, however, insisted that Washington still is committed to the alliance despite Hegseth’s warning that European allies can’t rely on America’s presence “forever.”
He noted the United States’ GDP makes up 50% of the alliance’s GDP, making it “an American organization,” and insisted the country had “a clear commitment to NATO.”
The secretary general, however, offered some tough advice to members amid the United States’ more hostile tenor toward the alliance during a second Trump administration.
“Get into the debate, not by complaining … but by coming up with concrete ideas,” he said at the conference, CNBC reported.
Trump previously criticized NATO members for failing to carry their fair share of the defense spending burden, even threatening during his 2024 campaign he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to members who didn’t cough up their portion of the tab.
