President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underscored that a record number of members are now pulling their defense spending weight, a key matter former President Donald Trump had with the alliance.
“We have a very important announcement to make today: A record number of allies are meeting NATO’s commitment to [spend] at least 2% of their [gross domestic product] on defense,” Biden told reporters Monday at the start of his meeting with Stoltenberg at the White House.
“In fact, the number has more than doubled since we took office, since I took office, and we look forward to building on all of this progress next month when we have our 75th meeting here in Washington,” he said.
Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister who will step down from the NATO post he has held since 2017 in October, similarly emphasized that 23 of NATO’s 32 members had increased their defense spending to 2% of GDP, representing a collective increase of 18% across the alliance during the past year alone. That is the largest increase in “decades,” according to Stoltenberg.
It “demonstrates that European allies and Canada are really stepping up, and taking their share of the common responsibility to protect all of us in the NATO alliance,” Stoltenberg said in the Oval Office.
“I expect that when we meet next month, we will agree to have a NATO role in providing security assistance and training and agree to step up financial support to Ukraine,” he added. “This will reduce the burden on the United States and strengthen our support to Ukraine.”
The announcement precedes next month’s NATO summit in Washington, D.C., and the potential return of Trump to the White House. Trump criticized NATO as a 2016 presidential candidate and when he was commander in chief, complaining that the United States has disproportionate spending responsibilities compared to the rest of the alliance. Since his return to the 2024 campaign trail, he has promised to continue supporting NATO as long as other members “play fair.”
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During a separate engagement at the Wilson Center earlier Monday, Stoltenberg declined to speculate with reporters when all 32 NATO members would reach the GDP defense spending target, a 10-year goal that was a response to Russia‘s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“I’m very encouraged by what we’ve seen,” Stoltenberg said. “Also a significant increase across the alliance and not only do more and more allies spend 2%, but more and more allies actually spend more than 2%.”
