Kathmandu. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday pressed NATO to agree on a deal to increase defense spending that could satisfy President Donald Trump at a summit later this month.
Trump has asked coalition members to agree to raise their defense budget to five percent of their GDP at a meeting in the Netherlands on June 24-25. NATO chief Mark Rutte has proposed an agreement to spend 3.5 percent of gdp on military spending and 1.5 percent on security sectors such as infrastructure by 2032.
“We are here to continue the work started by President Trump, which is a commitment to spend five percent of defense on this alliance, we think it should happen from the summit in The Hague,” Hazeth said at the start of a meeting with NATO counterparts in Brussels. Fight five percent, credible and capable forces and then ensure that NATO is focused on its main mission, continental defense, where its comparative advantage exists. ”
Many diplomats have said Rutte appears to be on track to secure a deal for a summit in the Hague, but some aides are still reluctant to commit to such levels of spending.
“I am really, completely, positively confident that at the summit with 32 people, when it comes to a really big increase in defense spending, we will reach an agreement,” the NATO chief said on Wednesday. Spain is the most reluctant. Spain is ready to reach nato’s current target of 2 percent of GDP by the end of this year. Diplomats said other countries were also negotiating to extend the deadline and remove demands to increase key defense spending by 0.2 percentage points each year.
But the deal appears to be an acceptable deal for many, allowing Trump to claim to have achieved his core demand and actually setting the bar low for struggling European allies. The United States has supported Root’s plan. But the U.S. ambassador to NATO insisted on Wednesday that Washington wants to see “plans, budgets, deadlines, deliverables” to meet the target. In a related move, NATO ministers will sign new capability targets for weapons needed to counter threats from Russia at their meeting in Brussels.
NATO officials estimate that on average, countries will have to spend between 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent of GDP to meet new targets. Higseth, a former TV presenter, rocked NATO on his last trip in February, warning that Washington could reduce its troops in Europe to focus on China.
Since then, no concrete announcement has been made about the withdrawal of troops from the United States, but NATO allies are under stress.
Ukraine question
As NATO moves towards a defence spending deal, another serious issue now risks overshadowing the summit in three weeks: What to do about Ukraine? Trump’s return to the White House destroyed Washington’s support for Ukraine and reversed the West’s approach to Russia’s three-year war.
Hegseth left a meeting of Ukraine’s supporters in Brussels on Wednesday and stressed america’s non-alignment with Kiev. Kiev’s European allies have been pushing hard to invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the Hague as a sign of support and win over U.S. reluctance. So far, NATO has only said Ukraine will be represented in the assembly. However, it has not been confirmed that Zelensky will participate.
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