U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a plan Tuesday to inject cash into his country’s military just days before he’s set to meet with President Donald Trump, who has been a vocal critic of European nations’ inability to fund their own defense.
Starmer, the Labour Party prime minister, told Parliament that the UK will move to increase defense spending by 2.5% of its gross domestic product by 2027, as Starmer is set to meet with Trump in Washington D.C. on Thursday. Trump has continued to pressure Europe to spend on its defense budgets as more European countries scramble to adjust to a U.S. administration less willing to splurge on the continent’s defense.
“We must go further still. I’ve long argued that in the face of ongoing generational challenges,” Starmer said in a speech to Parliament outlining his defense spending plan. “All European allies must step up and do more for our own defense. So subject to economic and fiscal conditions and aligned with our strategic and operational needs, we will also set a clear ambition for defense spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament.”
Starmer said the budget increase would be in part funded by cutting overseas development aid from .5% to .3% of the gross national income. The U.K. currently spends 2.3% of its GDP on defense, totaling to around $68 billion in fiscal year 2023 to 2024, according to government data.
“In my Plan for Change, I pledged to improve the lives of people in every corner of the UK, by growing the economy,” Starmer said. “By spending more on defence, we will deliver the stability that underpins economic growth, and will unlock prosperity through new jobs, skills and opportunity across the country.”
As of 2024, most nations in NATO have met the required defense spending of 2% of GDP, with the U.K. being one of the largest spenders in the alliance, according to the Atlantic Council. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a large driver of the increase in addition to Trump’s pressure from both his first and current terms.
“The United States should pay its fair share, not everybody else’s fair share. I believe the United States was paying 90% of the cost of NATO, it could be 100%. It was the most unfair thing,” Trump said in a March 2024 interview with GB News. “And don’t forget — it’s more important to them than it is to us. We have an ocean in between some problems, we have a nice, big, beautiful ocean.”
Starmer’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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