Nato promises historic rearmament shift in bid to win over Donald Trump

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

Nato allies have pledged to meet Donald Trump’s demand to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035, in a historic rearmament shift aimed at convincing him to maintain US commitments to protect the continent from invasion.

At a summit designed to win over the American president, Trump assured his 31 allies he was “with them all the way”, assuaging concerns he was seeking to renegotiate a mutual defence pact that has formed the bedrock of European security for eight decades.

Wednesday’s summit at The Hague also issued a joint statement that reaffirmed Nato governments’ “ironclad commitment to collective defence” and committed them to providing “annual plans showing a credible, incremental path” to the 5 per cent target.

It added that a review of the spending goal, which would unleash hundreds of billions of euros for defence over the next decade, would take place in 2029 — the year Trump is due to leave office.

The US president called the summit’s achievements “tremendous”, adding that the focus had been the “need for other Nato members to take up the burden of the defence of Europe”.

“It was 2 per cent [of GDP] and we’ve we got it up to 5 per cent,” he said.

Trump’s affirmation of support for Nato came after he sparked alarm on his way to The Hague by saying Washington’s commitment to Nato’s Article 5, which refers to its mutual defence pact, “depends on your definition”.

On Wednesday, he vowed to “stand with” the rest of the alliance at a time when fears of global instability have been stoked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East — notably the Iran-Israel war, in which Trump intervened at the weekend ahead of declaring a ceasefire on the summit’s eve.

European leaders were relieved by the endorsement of the transatlantic bond from the longtime Nato sceptic, who has repeatedly called for European countries to spend far more on defence and for the US to shift military assets from the continent to other regions.

Despite concerns in European capitals over the scale of the fiscal pressure the target will place on their budgets, leaders lined up to hail the summit’s achievements and Trump’s role in forcing them to spend more. The declaration was about “putting our money where our mouth is”, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.

But the summit communiqué contains just one reference to Russia, citing the “long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security” and one sentence referring to “enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine”.

That marks a striking change in tone from an alliance that has spent the past three years focusing on supporting Kyiv and reflects Trump’s scepticism of Russia as an adversary and his lukewarm stance towards Ukraine.

Some allies also still do not meet the previous 2 per cent spending target, and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez broke ranks to secure an exemption from the 5 per cent demand. Trump responded by labelling the country “terrible” and threatening to “make them pay twice as much” in US-EU trade negotiations.

The president has made clear Washington, by far the alliance’s biggest defence spender, is not itself bound by the 5 per cent goal, made up of core defence spending of 3.5 per cent of GDP plus 1.5 per cent in related infrastructure.

A note by ABN Amro economists added that the 3.5 per cent target was “unrealistic for most countries” and that “really big rises in defence spending will be confined chiefly to Germany”.

But Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, who had decided to focus the summit exclusive on spending, said the target would create “a stronger, fairer and more lethal Nato”.

“European allies and Canada will do more of the heavy lifting,” he told reporters after the meeting. “Work does not stop here. This is day one . . . to make this a reality.”

Some allies were made uneasy by Rutte’s fulsome praise of Trump — whom he even referred to as “Daddy” — but it ultimately ensured the US president remained content, two officials told the Financial Times.

Rutte later defended his handling of the president as “a question of taste”, adding that Trump “deserved all the praise”.