Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he thinks that the committment to the increased budget will happen this month.<\/p>\n
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pressed NATO members to agree to Donald Trump\u2019s demand for a major increase in defence spending ahead of a summit later this month.<\/p>\n
The US president has said NATO allies should boost investment in defence to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), up from the current target of 2 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be an alliance, you got to be more than flags. You got to be formations. You got to be more than conferences. You need to be, keep combat-ready capabilities,\u201d Hegseth said as he arrived for a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5 percent defence spending across this alliance, which we think will happen,\u201d Hegseth said, adding: \u201cIt has to happen by the summit at The Hague later this month.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an attempt to compromise with the new target, NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte has proposed that members of the military alliance boost defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP and commit a further 1.5 percent to broader security-related spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to go further and we have to go faster,\u201d Rutte told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cA new defence investment plan will be at the heart of the NATO summit in The Hague,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera\u2019s Hashem Ahelbarra said for some European countries, including Spain, Germany and Belgium, meeting a 5 percent target will be \u201cextremely difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they have decided they are going to further coordinate their military strategy particularly when it comes to acquiring air defence systems, long-range missiles and also train their troops to be ready for the potential of any geopolitical change,\u201d Ahelbarra said.<\/p>\n
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European NATO members have been steadily increasing their defence spending.<\/p>\n
Ahelbarra said European members are \u201cconcerned\u201d that Russia remains the \u201cbiggest threat to stability in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n
Defence budget targets<\/p>\n
Diplomats have said that countries are attempting to negotiate the timeline to achieve the 5 percent target.<\/p>\n
Rutte has proposed reaching the target by 2032, which some countries consider too late, while others think it\u2019s unrealistic, considering current spending and industrial production levels.<\/p>\n
Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene said on Wednesday that the 2032 target was \u201cdefinitely too late, and pushed for a target of 2030 at the latest.<\/p>\n
Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson told reporters on Thursday that Stockholm also wants to see the bloc reach the 5 percent target by 2030.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, NATO officials have estimated that, on average, meeting the new targets would cost countries between 3.5 and 3.7 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he thinks that the committment to the increased budget will happen this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[2821,12,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-159801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-nato","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-us-canada","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114629951070354858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}