NATO’s Rutte Europe stop complaining, pledges spending targets boost

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Saturday offered some blunt advice to European members of the military alliance in the face of a more confrontational U.S.: stop complaining and present solutions.

“Get into the debate, not by complaining …. but by coming up with concrete ideas,” he told the Munich Security Conference.

The NATO chief also confirmed that the alliance would reach a new agreement for defense spending targets when members meet in June for a summit in the Hague, Netherlands.

“It will be a number much more than than 2%,” Rutte said, without providing more specific details.

In a panel hosted later Saturday, Rutte told Politico’s Paul McLeary that the figure could be “considerably more than 3%.” 

Speaking on a panel alongside Rutte, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his offensive against Ukraine, had done more than any NATO member to galvanize increases in military spending.

“Putin has done more to help NATO than we have,” he said, adding that the Russian leader had made a “serious miscalculation.”

The thorny issue of NATO defense spending is a key part of growing division and discomfort between the U.S. and Europe.

Trump’s relationship with the Western military alliance was acrimonious during his first presidency, with the Republican leader frequently lambasting NATO member states for not abiding by a 2014 target to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense every year.

Ahead of his second term in office, Trump signaled that the debate over military spending — and Trump’s perception that NATO members are over-reliant on the U.S. for their own security — will be back on the agenda, stating that NATO’s 32 member countries should contribute even more toward defense.

“I think NATO should have 5% [of their GDP as a NATO contribution target],” he said in January. “They can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%”, he said at a press conference in which he also refused to rule out using military force to seize the Panama Canal or Greenland — a territory that belongs to NATO member Denmark.

There has been a broad increase in defense expenditure among NATO members since Trump was last in power. In 2018, at the height of the White House leader’s irritation with the military bloc, only six member states met the 2% of GDP target.

By contrast, NATO data estimates that 23 members met the 2% target in 2024. While some surpassed that threshold — such as Poland, Estonia, the U.S., Latvia and Greece — major economic powers including Canada, Spain and Italy are among the laggards below the contribution threshold.

No NATO member has reached a 5% target suggested by Trump, including Washington under the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden.