NATO Is Sketching Out Plan to Meet Trump Call for 5% of GDP on Defense

DRAWSKO POMORSKIE, POLAND - FEBRUARY 26: Soldiers of the United Kingdom's 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian infantry unit storm an enemy position in a simulated attack during the NATO "Brilliant Jump" military exercises on February 26, 2024 in Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland. Brilliant Jump is combining forces from the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain, Albania and Turkey under NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (Land) (VJTF(L)). Brilliant Jump is part of the ongoing NATO Steadfast Defender exercise, with is involving 90,000 troops in maneuvers across Europe. Photo by Sean Gallup /Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty

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(Bloomberg) — NATO allies have started cobbling together an agreement to significantly boost defense spending in a way that may assuage US President Donald Trump’s demand to spend 5% of economic output on the military. 

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Negotiators in the military alliance are making progress on a path to achieve 5% of GDP on defense and defense-related spending by 2032 ahead of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in The Hague in June, according to diplomats familiar with the matter. NATO foreign ministers will discuss the initiative at a meeting in the Turkish resort city of Antalya Wednesday and Thursday. 

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The Mediterranean meeting takes place against a rush of diplomacy as the Trump administration pushes to end the war in Ukraine that’s dragged on for more than three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he’s prepared to meet face-to-face with Vladimir Putin in Istanbul Thursday as the warring sides grapple with demands for a ceasefire. The Russian leader has given no sign he’ll come. 

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Agreement on defense spending on the scale that Trump demands — none of NATO’s 32 members, including the US, has achieved that threshold — would mark the biggest spending increase by Western allies since the end of the Cold War as NATO members retrench since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

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Since his first term, Trump has hectored allies for failing to meet a long-standing 2% threshold for spending. Eight of 32 allies hadn’t reached 2% spending as of NATO’s annual report in April.

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Secretary General Mark Rutte is pushing allies to agree to a level of 3.5% of GDP in the next seven years, topped by an extra 1.5% earmarked for a wider set of spending related to defense, according to senior diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss talks being held behind closed doors. That initiative was first reported by Reuters. 

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Rutte, speaking to reporters in the US last month, said the goal for the Hague summit — Trump’s first since returning to the White House — would be to re-balance spending within the alliance considering the outsize US proportion compared with European NATO allies and Canada. 

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Ministers in Antalya will discuss what kind of spending would count toward the 1.5% component, including areas such as military mobility, dual-use goods and cybersecurity, the diplomats said, adding that talks are in an initial stage. It remained unclear whether that segment would include existing spending or require fresh commitments. 

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Rutte’s proposal includes a regular and rigorous verification mechanism, unlike the looser goals set currently by allies. 

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Boosting spending by an order of magnitude in the time-frame being discussed will be an enormous challenge, one senior European diplomat said, though many now view the effort as necessary to send a strong message to the Kremlin. 

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Some NATO members, including Italy and Spain, have only recently announced reaching the 2% level. All are expected to meet the old benchmark by the summit, according to a person familiar with the issue.