THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A NATO summit designed to please President Donald Trump ended Wednesday with his European allies approving an ambitious spending goal to meet the threat of a militarizing Russia, and clinching a long-elusive public commitment from the mercurial American leader for the alliance’s collective defense.
Since his first term, Trump has been pressing for the allies to spend more on their own defense. On Wednesday, after a one-day meeting in the Netherlands, they agreed to raise their spending on the military to 5% of their national income by 2035.
That amount consists of 3.5% on traditional military needs like troops, weapons, shells and missiles, up sharply from the current target of 2%. It also includes another 1.5% on “militarily adjacent” projects like improved roads and bridges, better emergency health care, better cybersecurity and civic resilience.
Trump was pleased.
“This was a tremendous summit, and I enjoyed it very much,” he said at a news conference at the end of the meeting. He added that he understood the central role the United States plays in the defense of Europe. “They want to protect their country, and they need the United States and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same,” he said.
Trump has long denigrated NATO allies as freeloaders, relying on the United States for protection, and Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have described Europe as a drain on U.S. security resources. The president has even mused publicly about withdrawing from the alliance.
But the summit’s brief communiqué, unanimously approved Wednesday, included a restatement of the allies’ commitment to collective defense in Article 5 of the NATO pact. The president has often been reluctant to commit publicly to Article 5, though he often does in private.
At his own news conference, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte expressed frustration over continued questions about Trump’s commitment to Article 5. He urged journalists and politicians “to stop worrying,” adding: “The United States is totally committed to Article 5. How many times do we want them to say this?”
The summit won praise from Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This will be remembered as a landmark summit,” he said in an interview in The Hague. “The agreement to spend 5% is a significant step forward toward a shared commitment to our collective security.”
But he cautioned that “this money has to be coordinated and spent well, or it will do little more than run up costs and inflation.”
Others were skeptical.
“All the big challenges were left off the agenda,” said Torrey Taussig, a former Europe director for the National Security Council under former President Joe Biden. There was “no meaningful deliverable for Ukraine, despite a fourth year of a land war in Europe,” she said, and no discussion of future policy toward Russia or the rising challenges of China.
Also, the commitment is to raise spending to 5% over a decade, and that is a long time. Some countries may never reach these targets.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said before the summit that Spain would spend 2.1% of its GDP on defense, “no more, no less.” Slovakia and Belgium also hinted that the 5% pledge was going to be impossible to meet.
But Rutte worked around Spain with a bit of mushy diplomatic language. The communiqué said “the allies” — not “all allies” — had agreed to the 5% figure.
Rutte presented the agreement as a victory for Trump, praising him for pushing the Europeans to do what was necessary in their own interests.
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