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Spain is the last major holdout on a Nato plan to announce early next month that the entire alliance will spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2032, a target demanded by US President Donald Trump.

Madrid is under pressure to commit to the target and enable Nato to announce that all its members will meet the pledge at a meeting of its defence ministers in Brussels on June 5, four officials briefed on the preparations said.

Trump has demanded Nato countries hit 5 per cent or risk losing US protection, in a drive to “equalise” the cost of defending the alliance.

Diplomats are straining to secure unanimous Nato backing ahead of the alliance’s leaders’ summit in The Hague on June 24, where many hope Trump will accept the promises of increased spending and reaffirm US security guarantees to Europe.

But Spain was still yet to confirm that it will support the 5 per cent pledge, the officials said, potentially blocking a unanimous statement, undermining alliance unity and complicating the preparations for The Hague.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said he had “urged Spain to join allies in committing 5 per cent of GDP to defence”, after meeting Spain’s foreign minister in Washington this week.

But the Socialist-led Spanish government is refusing to address the demand head-on in public.

Marco Rubio said he had urged Jose Manuel Albares to commit 5 per cent of Spain’s GDP to defence © Mehmet Eser/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares said: “There was an exchange [with Rubio] and both of us expressed our views very clearly. I insisted that it was a huge effort to reach two per cent, and that the debate right now needs to focus on capabilities.”

Spain has long been a laggard on defence spending. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez only said this month that Spain would meet Nato’s current 2 per cent spending target this year, as he unveiled a €10bn defence investment plan. He had previously said Madrid would hit 2 per cent before 2029.

Under a scheme drawn up by secretary-general Mark Rutte, the allies will commit to spend 3.5 per cent on core defence expenditure by 2032 and an additional 1.5 per cent on related spending such as cyber security and defence-adjacent infrastructure.

Margarita Robles, Spain’s defence minister, said this week she had told a meeting of Nato counterparts that “we understand that the important thing is not so much talking about specific percentages, but rather developing capabilities and fulfilling missions”.

Madrid has consistently argued that it makes big contributions to Nato, EU and UN missions that are not quantified in the figures.

No Nato ally currently spends 5 per cent on defence according to the alliance’s strict existing criteria. But two officials said that the 3.5 per cent figure was more critical, given that almost all allies already spend 1.5 per cent of GDP on the areas set to be covered by the second portion of the target.

US ambassador to Nato Matthew Whitaker said: “5 per cent is our number,” earlier this month. “We’re asking our allies to invest in their defence like they mean it.”

If Spain agrees to the pledge, Nato plans for the defence ministers in June to use the meeting to discuss technical details of the scale-up, including potential milestones between now and 2032, according to Nato diplomats.

Bernardo Navazo, founder of Geopolitical Insights, a Madrid-based consultancy, said Spain’s government recognised the need to spend more than 2 per cent, but had to buy time to “work on an accompanying public discourse, because as a country we come from a tradition that is more pacifist and anti-militarist”.

But Navazo saw the US target as unrealistic. “For countries like Spain and Italy, it will be very difficult to get their populations to back 5 per cent in a context where people perceive no imminent threat, even if the leaders say we are part of the EU and the EU faces a security threat from Russia.”