NATO members have finally reached a deal on raising the defense spending requirement from the current 2% to 5%, as demanded by U.S. president Donald Trump. However, they will only have to meet the new target by 2035, ten years from now.
The agreement comes just days before the annual NATO summit, this time organized by the Netherlands in the Hague on June 24th and 25th, where the leaders of the Atlantic alliance are expected to formally commit to the new figure.
For weeks, it looked like the 5% target would not get approved due to opposition from Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez. On Sunday, however, Sánchez dropped his veto after being promised “flexible” spending options—meaning Spain would not have to spend as much as others, as long as it still meets NATO’s updated “capability targets.”
In order to bring Spain on board, a last-minute tweak was introduced in the Hague summit’s draft resolution, changing it from “we commit” to “allies commit” to the 5% spending target—allowing Madrid to deviate from the common course.
The current 2% target was approved back in 2014, but European allies and Canada have collectively reached that figure only last year. Many NATO members are still underperforming, with Spain spending the least amount, only 1.24% in 2024.
According to Sánchez, Sunday’s agreement will allow Spain to spend only 2.1% (by 2035), while still acquiring and maintaining all the personnel, equipment, and infrastructure requested by NATO defense ministers as minimum capabilities during a meeting on June 5th.
It’s unclear whether the other allies believe that it’s even possible without spending much more, but it seems they have postponed answering that question by at least a few years just to get a formal joint commitment during the summit.
For everyone else, the expectation will be 5%, from which 3.5% should be spent on “hard defense”—such as weapons, troops, aircraft, or ships—and another 1.5% invested in broader security, such as infrastructure or cyber-resilience.
Well, everyone but the U.S., that is, as Trump stated multiple times, that the 5% target will not apply to America. The U.S.’s current defense spending of 3.4% of its GDP—about $1.5 trillion—still represents roughly two-thirds of NATO’s entire defense spending, which is the reason why Washington expects the European allies to contribute more.
Currently, only Poland and the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) have committed to reaching the 5% unilaterally. While the others are going to commit to it this week, it remains to be seen whether they can reach it in the given timeframe.
