Trump Advisers Push Even Higher Target for NATO Defense...

Trump Advisers Push Even Higher Target for NATO Defense Spending

Trump Camp Considers Picking New Fight With NATO On Budgets (msn.com)

(Bloomberg) -- Advisers for Donald Trump have floated the idea of demanding NATO allies spend 3% of gross domestic product on defense, a higher target than alliance members have agreed to and a warning shot that signals even more tension if he returns to the White House.The idea of calling on NATO members to spend so much more than the current 2% goal - one that many allies have only recently met - came up in discussions at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, according to people familiar with the conversations who asked not to be named because the issue isn’t public.

These people said the elevated target is just an idea for now and hasn’t yet risen to formal policy for the Trump team. Trump has long complained that the allies don’t spend enough on their militaries, attacking members for falling short of a 2014 commitment to commit 2% of GDP to defense.



The higher target would require hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending from allies already struggling to control government debt. Only three NATO nations — Poland, the US and Greece — spent 3% or more of their GDP on defense last year, according to NATO. One person familiar with Trump’s position described the latest figure as a negotiating tactic meant to pressure allies not to get complacent as they boost defense spending. At a NATO summit in 2018, Trump suggested allies spend even more than that — 4% of GDP — on defense, a target even the US doesn’t currently meet.
Such a demand would put Trump in line with Poland’s President President Andrzej Duda, who forged a bond with Trump when he was US president and called on NATO earlier this year to meet a 3% target. The three Baltic states have all pledged to raise their defense spending to 3% of GDP. Although Trump can demand changing the NATO target, doing so officially would need the approval of all alliance members. In 2014, NATO nations agreed to the so-called Wales Declaration, a non-binding commitment in which they aimed “to move toward the 2% guideline” within a decade.NATO defense spending has become a major talking point in the US presidential campaign, with Trump suggesting at a rally in Florida early in July that he wouldn’t honor alliance commitments to mutual defense if a country isn’t meeting its spending targets.“President Trump got our allies to increase their NATO spending by demanding they pay up,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “When President Trump returns to the Oval Office, he will restore peace and rebuild American strength and deterrence on the world stage.”
Another person confirmed the higher target had been discussed in Milwaukee but there was some debate about whether setting it would be a good idea. The person said the lower target is a useful cudgel because all member states had committed to it, whereas setting a higher goal would be impossible to enforce and might fracture alliance unity. Both Trump and the administration of President Joe Biden have sough to take credit for the rise in military spending by North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies over the last few years. In 2024, 23 of the alliance’s 32 members were set to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense, up from nine in 2020. More have pledged to hit the goal this year.The alliance itself has made clear that 2% is only a baseline and not a limit. A communique from a recent NATO leaders summit in Washington said spending beyond that target would be needed in some cases to address shortfalls.
GLOBAL INSIGHT: NATO Defense Spending Up, But May Not Be EnoughBut experts say that’s more due to the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than cajoling from Biden or Trump. In recent months, European leaders have said they expect to spend even more for their security as the US focuses on other priorities.A 3% target for NATO allies would be a high bar. Germany would need to spend almost $900 billion more over the next ten years, while the tabs for France, Italy, Spain and Canada would be about $500 billion each, according to estimates from Bloomberg Economics.Publicly, Trump’s allies have offered reassurances about NATO, suggesting that the former president’s demand that they pay more means he sees the value in the alliance.“I would argue that Donald Trump obviously cares more about NATO than any other president because he’s the one that’s trying to give it more money,” Richard Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, said at a Bloomberg News event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week.--With assistance from Stephanie Lai.(Updates with Trump campaign comment in 9th paragraph.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com©2024 Bloomberg L.P.