{"id":7210,"date":"2026-07-08T12:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/7210\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T12:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:25:13","slug":"nato-chief-calls-for-rest-of-bloc-to-match-us-military-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/7210\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO chief calls for rest of bloc to match US military spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

NATO chief Mark Rutte has put the pressure on European members and Canada to accelerate military spending to meet that of the US, as members gather in Ankara for the NATO annual summit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking at a side event with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday, both officials lead the war-drive charge by repeating the the same war-mongering mantras that we need to prepare for war in order to stop it. This followed with\u00a0a demand for members to deliver 5% of GDP on military spending and for their economies to turn to war.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cthere\u2019s also an expectation\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009that the Europeans and the Canadians will equalise their spending with the United States, which I think, and many of the colleagues in the room today think, is completely fair,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

European NATO countries already had<\/a> a combined military spending of $559 billion (\u00a3596.5bn) in 2025, with Canada spending $37.5bn and the US spending $954bn. Moving forward, Rutte suggested that the EU and Canada find another $358 billion for further military expenditure. Noticeably absent was any attempt at dialogue or ceasefire.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump\u2019s contribution to the summit has been worrying \u2013 refreashing threats made earlier this year to invade Greenland and calling for trade to be cut off with Spain. Overnight, the US recommenced air strikes on Iran with Trump declaring the memorandum of understadning that was to lay the basis of a lasting peace agreement \u201cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This rhetoric comes as we continue to see an escalation of violence in the war between Russia and Ukraine. According to the UN, May was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilian causalities since the start of the conflict. From the beginning of 2026, there has been a massive acceleration in long-range drone attacks by both Ukraine \u2013 assisted by US intelligence<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and by Russia. Tens of thousands of drone attacks are being launched monthly and this is only intensifying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nuclear threats are intensifying too. Alongside Russia\u2019s deployment of its nuclear weapons to Belarus, the US has stationed a new generation of nuclear weapons, the B61-12, at European NATO bases. French President Emmanuel Macron is leading an initative to deploy French Rafale nuclear-armed fighter jets to even more European countries, including Poland \u2013 right on Russia\u2019s border. Finland and Lithuania are also paving the way for potential nuclear deployments on Russia\u2019s border by removing their constitutional opposition to nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Britain\u2019s purchase of the F-35A nuclear-capable jets for NATO deployment will only add to threats of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis frenzy of military spending and war mongering at this NATO summit is absolutely obscene. At this moment, hundreds of thousands of men are trying to flee conscription in Ukraine and Russia. They do not want to lose their lives for this devastating conflict. NATO re-armament across Europe will only result in hundreds of thousands more people being killed \u2013 and a very real possibility of a nuclear confrontation between nuclear-armed NATO and Russia.We need political leaders to listen to their populations, not to Trump, Rutte, von der Leyen, or the arms industry. Our planet is burning and we face a global recession. We need to solve these problems now. Not rush towards annihilation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO chief Mark Rutte has put the pressure on European members and Canada to accelerate military spending to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,299,166,7,4281,4282,21,71,942],"class_list":["post-7210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-mark-rutte","tag-military-spending","tag-nato","tag-nato-summit-2025","tag-nuclear-dangers","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-ukraine","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}