Trump Pushes NATO to Spend More as Europe Grapples With Russia Threat
NATO’s upcoming summit will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on 24–25 June 2025. in The Hague centers on one figure: President Donald Trump. While 32 nations are set to meet, all eyes are on the U.S. leader who has reshaped the agenda and pressed allies to commit more to defense spending.
Secretary General Mark Rutte, hosting his first NATO summit, has crafted the gathering to meet Trump’s key demand. The alliance is preparing to approve a new defense spending target aimed at satisfying Washington’s call for more burden sharing.
Trump wants allies to commit 5% of their GDP to defense. Some countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania are already moving toward that level due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. However, many members still fall short of the long-standing 2% goal.
The summit will last only three hours and the final communiqué is expected to be five paragraphs. This tight schedule and slimmed-down format reflect Trump’s known impatience with long meetings and multilateral formalities.
At a 2019 summit, Trump scolded NATO members for “owing the U.S. massive amounts of money.” He has remained firm on that point. Speaking privately ahead of this year’s meeting, he repeated that allies must “pay their fair share.”
Rutte, seen as a reliable partner to Trump, has offered a compromise. The new proposal includes a target of 3.5% of GDP for direct defense spending and an additional 1.5% for broader security investments. These could include military infrastructure such as bridges, roads, and railways though critics argue the vague definition may allow loose interpretation and “creative accounting.”
The proposal is set against a backdrop of growing concern over Russia’s military plans. Rutte recently warned that Moscow could target a NATO member state within five years. The Alliance’s internal defense plans reportedly call for a 400% increase in air and missile defense, more armored vehicles, tanks, and millions of additional artillery shells.
While those plans remain classified, senior U.S. commanders have raised alarms about NATO’s ability to defend critical areas like the Suwałki Gap the narrow strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, flanked by Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave.
Despite the urgency, unity remains fragile. Not all NATO members are convinced by the timeline or feasibility of the spending increase. Spain’s prime minister called the goal “unreasonable and counterproductive.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declined to commit to a timeline, stating only that the UK’s defense budget will rise during the next parliamentary term.
The summit avoids the topic of Russia’s war in Ukraine in its formal agenda. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to a dinner event but is excluded from the central North Atlantic Council meeting. This move avoids direct confrontation with Trump, who has withheld military aid to Ukraine in the past and questions whether defending Ukraine aligns with U.S. national interest.
Kurt Volker, a former U.S. diplomat, noted that “many Europeans now admit they needed to spend more, even if they don’t like how the demand was made.”
European defense spending currently makes up about 30% of NATO’s military budget. The summit aims to shift that balance, though long-term commitments remain uncertain. Some member states still have not met the original 2% target, more than a decade after it was set.
Dutch police have launched their largest security operation to date for the event, with a total cost of $210 million. The summit is expected to be the most expensive in NATO’s history.
Rutte has tried to shape the summit to deliver a political win for Trump. Whether it strengthens NATO or exposes deeper fractures depends on how long allies can sustain the spending promises and whether they share the same threat perception.
As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and the Middle East simmers, the Alliance faces a test of both its unity and its future direction. For now, Trump holds the spotlight and much of the leverage.
