European NATO members are discussing raising their defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP ahead of Donald Trump’s return as president of the United States.
According to the Financial Times, confidential preliminary talks took place this week about raising the alliance’s target rise from 2 per cent of of GDP, a measure that could be implemented at its annual summit in the Netherlands in June next year.
The potential move comes amid demands from Trump that Europe should pay more for its own defence after he declared that he would consider pulling the US from NATO if targets were not met.
During his first presidency, Trump demanded more spending during the 2018 NATO summit, with leaders vowing to meet the 2 per cent benchmark.
But the surge in spending only came in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, with non-US NATO members raising their spending by around $100 billion over the last two years as a result.
This year, only 23 allies out of 32 are expected to meet or exceed the target of 2 per cent.
But seven European countries, including Italy and Spain, are still failing to meet the benchmark that was first implemented in 2014.
Three people involved in the talks also told the FT that they envisage a short-term pledge to hit 2.5 per cent and a target of 3 per cent by 2030.
NATO’s secretary general said he would push for the target to be ‘much more’ than the current benchmark.
Increasing spending further will come as a challenge to several European countries, including the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and France.
The UK expects to spend around 2.3 per cent of GDP on defence this year, and the government has confirmed it will raise that to 2.5 per cent.