NATO chief said to seek defense spending at 5% of GDP by 2032

NATO chief Mark Rutte wants member countries to agree at a summit in June to reach 5% of gross domestic product on defense-related spending by 2032, Dutch Premier Dick Schoof said Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO allies ramp up their military spending to 5% of GDP, a level that not even the United States currently hits.

Schoof said Rutte had written to NATO's 32 member countries calling for them to reach 3.5% of GDP on "hard military spending" and 1.5% of GDP on "related spending such as infrastructure, cybersecurity and other things" over the next seven years.

Trump is piling the pressure on Europe and Canada to ratchet up NATO's spending target at a summit in The Hague next month.

Foreign ministers from alliance countries are expected to tackle the matter at an informal gathering in Antalya, Turkey, next week.

Rutte on Friday refused to confirm the figures being debated but said "internal discussions" were taking place within NATO.

Diplomats within NATO, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the proposal circulated last week envisioned increasing direct military spending by 0.2% each year to 2032.

They said the discussions were at an early stage and there were no clear signs yet that there would be consensus for the figures.

The parameters of what could be included in the 1.5% of loosely related defence spending were still to be defined, they said.

"It makes no sense to argue about abstract GDP percentages now. What is crucial is that we continuously expand our efforts over the next few years," new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said during a visit to NATO's headquarters in Brussels on Friday.

Merz said that for Germany, every increase of 1% of GDP represented €45 billion ($50 billion).

Trump has long accused Washington's allies of underspending on their defense and taking advantage of U.S. largesse.

He has also threatened not to protect countries that do not spend enough on their military in his eyes.

European countries have ramped up their defense spending since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but Rutte says they must go considerably higher to ward off Moscow.

Last year 22 of NATO's 32 allies hit its current spending target of 2% of GDP on their militaries.

A string of countries such as Italy, Spain, Canada and Belgium that still lag below that level have pledged to reach it in 2025.

The United States last year spent 3.19% of its GDP on defense, behind eastern flank countries Poland, Estonia and Lithuania close to Russia.

But Washington remains by far the biggest military spender in NATO in absolute terms, accounting for 64% of all defense expenditures last year.

In a bid to help European countries bolster their spending, the EU has proposed loosening budget rules and establishing a €150 billion defense fund.