NATO countries will spend more than 2% of GDP on defence, as demanded by US President-elect Donald Trump. Alliance Secretary General Mark Rutte said this on Thursday, 7 November, ahead of the European Policy Community meeting in Budapest.
‘Absolutely in the future [NATO countries] will spend much more than 2% of GDP on defence. Now we need to have a discussion about whether the new target will be universal, like the current 2 per cent, or whether we need to set capacity targets for each ally – in which case the percentage for each country will be different,’ Rutte said.
He noted that US President Donald Trump was right in his previous presidential term (2017-2021) to say that NATO countries should spend more than 2% on defence. Rutte also congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election and called it a ‘huge victory for the Republicans’.
Earlier, on 4 November, Rutte said at a joint press conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that NATO would work with any US president regardless of whether Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the election.