(5 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 5 June 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary-General:
"I think we are allowed to use that word that the decision today is historic. When you look at the capability targets we agreed on this is such an enormous increase. And then of course from there you need to, OK, you cannot just say these are the new capability targets and there is no money. So I have total confidence that we will get there also on the 5%, and if you hammer out some of the details we still have to work on. So now I’m really confident and we have to do that because otherwise we all know we will be safe for the next couple of years but then we need to use those years to learn Russian."
++ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Most U.S. allies at NATO endorse President Donald Trump’s demand that they invest 5% of gross domestic product on their security needs and are ready to ramp up defence spending even more, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday.
”I think we are allowed to use that word that the decision today is historic,” Rutte said, adding the capability targets agreed on , show ”an enormous increase.”
European allies and Canada have already been investing heavily in their armed forces, as well as on weapons and ammunition, since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
At the same time, some have balked at U.S. demands to invest 5% of GDP on defence — 3.5% on core military spending and 1.5% on the roads, bridges, airfields and sea ports needed to deploy armies more quickly.
Rutte did not explain how the extra 1.5% was calculated, but he noted: “If a tank is not able to cross a bridge, if our societies are not prepared in case war breaks out for a whole society approach, if you’re not able to really develop the defence industrial base, then the 3.5% is great, but then you cannot really defend yourselves.”
In 2023, as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine entered its second year, NATO leaders agreed to spend at least 2% of GDP on national defence budgets. So far, 22 of the 32 member countries have done so, and others still struggle to do so.
Trump and his NATO counterparts appear likely to endorse the new goal at a summit in The Hague on June 24-25. Trump insists that U.S. allies should spend at least 5% so America can focus on security priorities elsewhere, mostly in the Indo-Pacific and its own borders.
He has gained important leverage over the other NATO countries by casting doubt over whether the United States would defend allies that spend too little. At the same time, Trump has imposed tariffs on ally and foe alike, citing U.S. security concerns.
The new goal would involve a 1.5% increase over the current 2% goal for defence budgets. It means that all 32 countries would be investing the same percentage. The United States spends by far more than any other ally in dollar terms.
But according to NATO’s most recent figures, it was estimated to have spent 3.19% of GDP in 2024, down from 3.68% a decade ago. It’s the only ally whose spending has dropped since 2014.
While the two new figures do add up to 5%, factoring in improvements to civilian infrastructure so that armies can deploy more quickly significantly changes the basis on which NATO traditionally calculates defence spending.
The seven-year time frame is also short by the alliance’s usual standards. The far more modest 2% target – set after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 – was meant to be reached over a decade.
AP video by Mark Carlson
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/aea56b416f394168a5f6674e7ee532b9
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in June 10, 2025, 6:05 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
