NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that the alliance would not have hit its security targets without U.S. President Donald Trump.
Last year, all 32 members of NATO achieved the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense and have moved on to a new spending target of 5 percent. Rutte, appearing at a panel during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said in no uncertain terms that the development was spurred by Trump's re-election.
"[F]or the protection of both the U.S. and Europe, it's crucial that NATO is there," Rutte said at the panel, entitled "Can Europe Defend Itself?"
Rutte said that the United States has been spending close to 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense spending, while Europe averages about 2 percent. The outsized role of the United States has been a point of friction since the Eisenhower administration, he added.
Rutte was unequivocal about what—or rather who—prompted the final few countries to go from 1.7 percent or less to hitting the target in just a year.
"Many of you I know criticize Donald Trump," said Rutte. "But do you really think that without Donald Trump, eight big economies in Europe—including Spain and Italy and Belgium, Canada by the way, also, outside Europe—would have come to 2 percent in 2025 when they were only on 1.5 percent at the beginning of the year? No way. Without Donald Trump, this would never have happened. They're all on 2 percent now."
Of 13 countries that officially crossed the 2 percent barrier, six countries were at 1.5 percent defense spending or below in 2024: Belgium, Canada, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Spain; another five nations—Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Portugal—were below 1.9 percent; Bulgaria and the Slovak Republic were at 1.95 percent or higher.
Furthermore, at the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, member nations agreed to target a combined 5 percent of GDP spending on defense and national security, including a higher target of 3.5 percent spending on "core defense," each member nation's military capability; and another 1.5 percent to shore up each nation's critical infrastructure and industrial base and ensure civilian readiness.
"Do you really think that...we would come to a overall defense spending of 5 percent, including 3.5 from core defense, if President Trump would not have been reelected as president of the United States? No way," said Rutte. "It would never have happened. So again, I'm not popular with you now because I'm defending Donald Trump, but I really believe we can be happy that he is there because he has forced us in Europe to step up, to face the consequences that we have to take care more of our own defense."
Rutte pointed out that the United States has some 80,000 soldiers still stationed on the continent and invests heavily in European defense. With growing threats in the Asia Pacific theater, the United States needs to pivot away from the Atlantic, and Europe needs to stand up for itself on the world stage. Rutte said that NATO already has a plan in place to do so while still maintaining a strong U.S. presence—and ultimately Europe's nuclear arsenal—as a deterrent.
"But again, I'm absolutely convinced without Donald Trump we would not have taken those decisions. And they are crucial, particularly for the European and the Canadian side of NATO, to really grow up in the post-Cold War world."