NATO Is Sketching Out a Plan to Meet Trump Call for 5% of GDP on Defence

The US currently accounts for 64% of NATO's defence expenditure, with Canada and Europe bringing 36%

- Bloomberg

NATO allies have started cobbling together an agreement to significantly boost defence spending in a way that may assuage US President Donald Trump's demand to spend 5% of economic output on the military.

Negotiators in the military alliance are making progress on a path to achieve 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence and defence-related spending by 2032 ahead of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in the Hague in June, according to diplomats familiar with the matter.

NATO foreign ministers will discuss the initiative at a meeting in the Turkish resort city of Antalya on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Mediterranean meeting takes place against a rush of diplomacy as the Trump administration pushes to end Russia's war in Ukraine that's dragged on for more than three years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he's prepared to meet face-to-face with Vladimir Putin in Istanbul Thursday as the warring sides grapple with demands for a ceasefire.

The Russian leader has given no sign he'll come.

Agreement on defence spending on the scale that Trump demands—none of NATO's 32 members, including the US, has achieved that threshold—would mark the biggest increase by Western allies since the end of the Cold War as NATO members retrench since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.