NATO will not agree to US President-elect Donald Trump's proposal to significantly increase defense spending, but will probably agree to exceed the current figure. This was reported by Reuters, according to UNN.
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According to Donald Trump's statement, members of the military alliance should spend 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense - a huge increase from the current 2% and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently reaches.
According to officials, at the NATO summit to be held in June in The Hague, the allies will discuss a new defense spending target caused by the threat of further Russian aggression against NATO countries. However, it is not yet clear whether states will support Trump's call and what the new agreed level of spending will be.
A compromise target is expected to be around 3% of GDP. But even that would be a challenge for many countries that are barely meeting or even falling short of the 2% target now, a decade after it was set.
"I think there will be a shift," Italian Defense Minister Guido Crossetto told Reuters. "I don't think it will be 5%, which is impossible for almost every country in the world right now, but... it won't be the two (percent) we are already trying to achieve, but it will be more than two.
Italy, with defense spending of about 1.5% of GDP, is one of eight NATO member states that has not reached the current target.
Poland, which borders Ukraine, is the NATO member that spends the largest share of GDP on defense - 4.12% last year, according to Alliance estimates. It is followed by Estonia with 3.43% and the United States with 3.38%.
NATO estimates that the total defense spending of its members in 2024 will amount to $1.474 trillion - about $968 billion from the United States and $507 billion from European countries and Canada. The overall average is about 2.71% of NATO's GDP.
Some officials and analysts consider Trump's 5% offer to be an overly high starting rate for the start of months of negotiations and expect him to settle for something closer to 3%.
Earlier, UNN wrote that Trump's team informed European leaders of plans to demand an increase in NATO defense spending to 5% of GDP. Despite previous statements, the new administration intends to continue to help Ukraine.