The Trump administration has given European NATO members until 2027 to take on the majority of the alliance’s conventional defense responsibilities, sources told Reuters this week, or face diminished U.S. participation.
Officials from the Pentagon reportedly told European diplomats at a meeting in Washington this week that they expected more from Europe in taking up their part of the alliance, expressing some doubts about their current efforts. President Donald Trump has long advocated for the rest of the NATO alliance to spend more on their defense, most recently publishing a National Defense Strategy (NDS) document Friday calling on Europe to save itself from “civilizational erasure.”
The Trump administration also threatened to scale back U.S. involvement in some NATO coordination efforts if Europe fails to meet the target, sources who requested anonymity told Reuters.
“We’ve been very clear in the need for Europeans to lead in the conventional defense of Europe,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “We are committed to working through NATO coordination mechanisms to strengthen the alliance and ensure its long-term viability as European allies increasing take on responsibility for conventional deterrence and defense in Europe.”
In 2024, 22 NATO members were projected to meet the standard 2% of GDP defense spending obligation, but the Trump administration has since pushed to make it 5%, a figure that generated mixed reactions in Europe.
France has taken a leading role in getting Europe to take up its own defense, with French President Emmanuel Macron pledging in November to deliver 100 Rafale fighter jets to Ukraine over the next decade. Germany has also stepped up in bolstering its military, recently passing a law which would send 18-year-old Germans a mandatory questionnaire regarding their willingness to join the armed forces.
The EU set its own deadline of 2030 to bolster their militaries and defense-related infrastructure. EU Leaders have characterized even this target as ambitious, according to Reuters.
The new National Defense Strategy highlights Russia’s war in Ukraine as a key motivator for Europe to increase its defense burden as the U.S. moves to have Europe’s NATO members shoulder much more of the responsibility for supporting Ukraine..
“As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat,” the NDS reads. “Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”
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