NATO, together, has an “ironclad commitment” to its collective defense. Or, at least, that’s what a long-awaited, if brief, communique published by the alliance on Wednesday said, as it rounded off its biggest summit of the year.
Article 5 — perhaps the ultimate sign of unity — is fully intact, the alliance said.
Trump, a notorious NATO skeptic, has at several points heaped doubt on just how seriously he takes Article 5, including as he set off on his journey to The Hague. Article 5 is part of NATO’s founding treaty, meaning if one country is attacked, all other nations must see it as an attack on the whole alliance and respond as they see fit.
Trump has not been shy or reserved in his criticism of European allies and Canada, whom he deemed were not pulling their weight in NATO. The U.S.’s allies agreed, trying to present a united front for months by pledging to raise defense spending, partly to keep the Americans on side.
But it was not Trump who cast doubt on NATO solidarity this week in The Hague and what he termed a “highly productive” summit in a “beautiful” country. It was Spain, whose prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced in the run-up to the summit that Madrid would not be raising its defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
This is the figure Trump and his senior officials have demanded. It is also the number that was considered completely unrealistic even a few months ago. Even during the Munich Security Conference in February, when Vice President JD Vance eviscerated European politicians from the stage in front of them, there was little indication that 5 percent could be deemed feasible in the near future.
But NATO rubberstamped a commitment on Wednesday to dedicate 3.5 percent of GDP to the military, plus another 1.5 percent to defense-related areas like cyber or infrastructure.
“It was not easy but we’ve got them all signed onto 5 percent!” NATO chief Mark Rutte said in screenshots of texts to Trump, posted by the president to social media on Tuesday.
All but Spain. Madrid said again on Wednesday that it will be able to fulfil the new targets each country has been set without reaching 3.5 percent of GDP on core defense spending. Rutte told journalists on Monday the alliance was “absolutely convinced” it could not.
Attendees at The Hague expressed a hope that Spain will eventually come around and increase its spending. If Madrid starts “lagging behind because they’re not willing to spend enough, then there will be a serious discussion with Spain, and there will be much more pressure,” retired Admiral Rob Bauer, who until last year served as the head of NATO’s Military Committee, told Newsweek.
Trump, meanwhile, appears to have opted for punishment of the U.S.’s ally. “They want to stay at 2 percent—I think it’s terrible,” Trump said during his press conference, which closed the summit on Wednesday. “I don’t know what the problem is. I think it’s too bad.”
Trump said he would “make them pay twice as much” in a trade deal currently being negotiated.
Spain, as of 2024, did not meet the current 2 percent threshold each alliance member is, on paper, supposed to reach. It is not considered a major military powerhouse in Europe.
“It doesn’t really matter if Spain misses a target,” one prominent attendee remarked. “It’s a minor dent on an unimportant part of the vehicle.”
But the PR value does matter, at least to the U.S. Spain recusing itself from the 5 percent pledge is a “big problem,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Politico.
“I don’t think that the agreement that Spain has reached is sustainable, and frankly it puts them in a very tough spot with regards to their other allies and partners,” he added.
One of these allies could be Estonia, a country staring down Russia that committed to spending 5.4 percent on defense on average for the next four years — or an extra $3.2 billion. Tallinn would try to meet NATO’s new capability targets “as quickly as possible,” the government said as it announced the decision in April.
Exact NATO capability targets, assigned to each country and decided in early June, are classified and separate from the spending goals. If Spain had said it would not meet the capability targets, this would have been a much bigger concern, Bauer said.
“Of course, I would have been more happy that everybody’s following exactly the same standards,” said Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, when asked about Spain’s defense spending. But “unity is important as well,” Tsahkna added to Newsweek.
Publicly, there were enthusiastic nods to unity. Photos featuring smiling NATO leaders nodded to it, said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official.
But NATO “has had fractures, always,” he told Newsweek. “There’s never been a totally unified NATO to begin with.”
Even still, he added, “all the nations want to have unity here.”
“There’s always something,” said Bauer.
Attendees in The Hague have framed the defense spending pledge and snappy communique as a response to the threat of Russia, not just the biting condemnation of the U.S. president.
“The biggest change for me was not President Trump,” said Bauer. “The biggest change was the development of the threat — which is Russia, which was terrorist organizations,” he added. On the horizon, too, is China, the former military committee chief said.
“Time is against us — the Russian threat is real,” said Ulysse Ellian, a Dutch lawmaker from the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, previously led by Rutte. “For most of the allies, they do feel the sense of urgency,” he told Newsweek. “It’s natural some of them don’t, and then we have to convince them.”
Even now, some countries still need cajoling, Tsahkna said.
The countries forming the spine of NATO’s eastern flank, brushing up against the Russian border, have surged defense spending far quicker than Western and Southern Europe. Spain, geographically far from Russia, looks south to Africa more than toward the north and east.
Across most parts of NATO, though, there is a widespread feeling that defense spending across the board must rise, and rapidly. This year’s concise communique, homing in on defense and tossing other topics to the wayside, “highlights that Europe’s need to spend more on defense is one thing all Allies can agree on,” said Rachel Rizzo, a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
But now the hard work begins, Rizzo said. “It’s a long road ahead.”
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