{"id":2853,"date":"2026-04-07T07:24:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:28:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:28:52","slug":"natos-european-allies-and-canada-boosted-military-spending-by-20-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2853","title":{"rendered":"NATO’s European allies and Canada boosted military spending by 20% in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NATO report on Thursday said military spending by European allies and Canada rose by\u00a020 percent\u00a0in 2025.\u00a0US President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that NATO partners significantly boost defence expenditures, with leaders agreeing at a summit last year to spend 5 percent \u200bof GDP on defence and related investments by 2035.<\/strong><\/p>\n

NATO’s European allies and\u00a0Canada\u00a0increased defence spending by 20 percent to $574 billion \u200bin 2025 compared to the previous year in real terms, alliance chief\u00a0Mark Rutte<\/a>\u00a0said in his annual report published Thursday, urging NATO members to keep up \u200bthe momentum.<\/p>\n

“I \u200cexpect Allies at the next NATO Summit in \u2060Ankara to show they are on a clear and credible path towards the 5 percent objective,” he wrote, \u200cadding that “a strong transatlantic bond remains essential in an age of \u2060global uncertainty”.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/span>Top NATO commander says allies must urgently rethink defence, prepare for ‘new enemy.’<\/p>\n

US President\u00a0Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that NATO partners significantly boost defence expenditures, as the US administration maintains that European \u200ballies should ultimately assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of \u200cthe continent.<\/p>\n

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Trump criticised NATO allies on Thursday, writing in a Truth Social post that NATO countries have done “absolutely nothing” to help with Iran.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“THE U.S.A. NEEDS NOTHING \u200cFROM NATO, BUT “NEVER FORGET” THIS VERY IMPORTANT POINT IN TIME!” he wrote.<\/p>\n

In his annual report, Rutte said \u200bthat last year “all Allies reported defence expenditure figures that met or went beyond the 2 percent target first set in 2014, with many making steep increases \u200bin spending.”<\/p>\n

NATO leaders agreed at a summit last year to spend 5 percent \u200bof GDP on defence and related investments by 2035.<\/p>\n

Countries \u200bpledged to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on core defence – such as troops and weapons – and 1.5 percent on \u200bbroader defence-related measures such as cyber security, protecting pipelines and adapting roads and bridges to handle heavy military vehicles.<\/p>\n

Three NATO countries \u2013 Poland, Lithuania and Latvia \u2013 already exceeded the new 3.5 percent target last year, according to the report’s estimates.<\/p>\n

Several countries \u2060, including Spain, Canada and Belgium, were at 2 percent.<\/p>\n

In total, the alliance of 32 member countries \u2060spent 2.77 percent of GDP \u200bon defence in 2025.<\/p>\n

The United States accounted for around 60 percent of alliance defence expenditure in 2025.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NATO report on Thursday said military spending by European allies and Canada rose by\u00a020 percent\u00a0in 2025.\u00a0US President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that NATO partners significantly boost defence expenditures, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[478,26],"class_list":["post-2853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nato","tag-eu-canada","tag-nato"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/NATO-EU-CANADA.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2855,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions\/2855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}