NATO nears deal to grant Trump’s wish for giant military spending increase

BRUSSELS — NATO leaders appear to be on track for an agreement to more than double their target for defense spending — to 5% of annual economic output — by using some creative number-crunching to please President Donald Trump, who has demanded the increase.

The question of how, and when, to meet the 5% benchmark, which would raise total NATO military spending to a staggering $2.4 trillion a year, was the focus of a meeting between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his European counterparts on Thursday.

Hegseth and allied defense ministers expressed confidence that they would clinch a deal in time for a summit of NATO leaders in the Netherlands this month.

“What I saw in there were countries prepared to step up, to push the limits of what they can do,” Hegseth told reporters at NATO headquarters Thursday.

T0 hit Trump’s goal, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has proposed a bit of magical math by which each allied country would raise hard military spending to 3.5% of annual gross domestic product and spend an additional 1.5% on “defense-related” initiatives.

Permitted expenditures would extend beyond such traditional matériel as tanks and missiles and could include cybersecurity or infrastructure, such as ensuring highways can handle the heavy load of tanks and other military equipment, officials said.

A few months ago, many European officials dismissed Trump’s demand for 5% — which is more than any ally, including the United States, currently spends — as a negotiating tactic.

Now, the priority ahead of the leadership summit seems to be as much to please Trump — who has threatened to let Russia attack allies that don’t pull their weight and in his first term once threatened to pull away from the alliance — as it is to improve collective military and defense capabilities.

Announcing an agreement on the 5% benchmark at the upcoming summit in The Hague is likely to prove far easier than actually winning approval in national capitals for the giant increases in military spending, given the economic challenges in many allied countries.

NATO spending is counted by adding up how much each ally spends on its own military, including salaries for troops and other personnel costs as well as weapons, vehicles and other equipment.

Trump’s proposed 2026 budget would raise U.S. military spending to $1 trillion, roughly 3.5% of projected GDP. Republicans in Congress are already facing criticism that the budget plan will increase the country’s budget deficit and long-term debt.

NATO says that 23 of its 32 member countries meet or exceed the current 2% goal and that nearly all members expect to hit the goal this year.

Unlike the United States, NATO countries in the European Union must adhere to strict deficit rules that limit how much they can borrow each year. Recently, those rules have been relaxed somewhat to allow for more military spending. The demand for greater military investment must also compete with other priorities, including health care and education.

The plan to hike spending has met pushback from allies that don’t yet spend 2%, including southern countries such as Spain, which are far from Russia’s borders and have different political or security considerations. Russia’s neighbors in the Baltics and Eastern Europe have already been planning big increases to their defense budgets.

Hegseth, nonetheless, said he was “very encouraged” by European commitments at Thursday’s meeting. “There are a few countries that are not quite there yet. … We’ll get them there,” he added. “Five percent is our message, and we will deliver that.”

Europe’s promise of a military spending spree is not solely about Trump, though many allies have been shaken by the sense that they can no longer rely on the U.S. amid the rising threat of a more assertive Russia.

This week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that his government had accepted the findings of a strategic review that called for building new attack submarines and munitions plants and acquiring bigger stocks of long-range weapons.

In the coming days, NATO diplomats are expected to hash out what expenditures will count under revised rules and to lock down percentages. Rutte’s initial proposal calls for meeting the new goal by 2032, diplomats said.

Setting the stage for a more expansive definition of military spending, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew G. Whitaker has said it goes beyond “just missiles, tanks and howitzers,” while warning that it can’t become “a grab bag for everything” and that “there’s not unlimited time.”

The broader definition of defense spending also echoes assessments that Europe should better prepare for modern warfare such as cyberattacks and enhance roads that would be used in a military crisis, analysts say.

But some suggestions have faced criticism, such as spending to combat climate change, NATO diplomats say. Early conversations were so far-reaching that one idea involved accounting for increased science, technology and math education for children. That was quickly shot down, officials said.

Some countries want to formally count the military aid they deliver to Ukraine, as Europeans seek to shoulder more of that weight with future of U.S. aid in doubt.

Rutte said Wednesday that the Western military alliance would “design the new investment plan in such a way that it will not impact the way our allies are helping Ukraine.”

Military outlays have long been a point of friction at NATO, with Washington accusing European allies of not spending enough and the Europeans noting that the U.S., seeking to remain in charge, has long constrained their capabilities.

The Trump administration has said it intends to shift resources from Europe in the future. And some European leaders believe Trump’s bid for rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin is dangerous.

The Pentagon has declined to say if the United States should boost its own defense spending to correspond with its demands of Europe.

Pressed on that point Thursday, Hegseth said: “The issue is not whether America will step up, we’ve stepped up.” He added, “The question is will our allies step up the way we need them to?”

On Thursday, the Pentagon announced its nomination of U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich to serve as the next head of U.S. European Command and as NATO’s top commander. The decision will ease some concern at NATO headquarters about the prospect of U.S. disengagement: The end of the current commander’s term this summer had fueled questions about the Trump administration’s plans. Grynkewich must be confirmed by the Senate.

While NATO members near an agreement on spending that could give Trump a win, the alliance’s hopes for a drama-free summit in The Hague could be scuttled by other tensions.

European diplomats are wary of Trump opposing promises of support for Ukraine or criticism of Russia in painstaking talks over the summit declaration, and it is unclear whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is fully welcome.

“What I want from this summit is really to be a splash … this incredible increase in defense spending,” Rutte said Thursday. In response to suggestions that the new pledge was largely geared at Trump, Rutte said European allies had to spend more for their own defenses and not “because of an audience of one.”

NATO officials say the 3.5% figure is also based on updated, classified lists of weapons and capabilities required of allied nations. Those targets, which defense ministers agreed to on Thursday, ask Europeans to substantially boost their capabilities, such as air defense systems, long-range missiles and command-and-control systems.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Thursday that his country, for instance, would need to add 50,000 to 60,000 active troops to its army under its new NATO targets.

Negotiations on military spending are not “about disappointing anybody” and are “not only about percentage,” Pistorius told reporters Wednesday. “It’s about negotiating what is necessary and what is possible,” he said. “But I know, I’m not naive, we will discuss the 3.5 or 1.5%, but what we need is to remain realistic.”

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• Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed.