U.S. expecting NATO members to show them the money at leaders’ summit

Short and sweet is not usually a phrase associated with the annual NATO leaders’ summit, but arguably that’s what many member nations are hoping for as U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the table. 

The gathering of allied leaders will be the first for Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is hosting in his home country, the Netherlands. 

What was originally expected to be a broad, bold agenda has been narrowed to perhaps a single catchphrase: Show me the money. 

Member nations will debate increasing the benchmark for defence spending from the current two per cent of the gross domestic product to a combined five per cent (3.5 per cent for direct military funding and an additional 1.5 per cent for defence infrastructure). 

Allies agreed to the tightly focused agenda in order to minimize the potential of facing the wrath of Trump. There will be a dinner with the Dutch royal family on Tuesday and then a meeting of the North Atlantic Council on Wednesday before leaders fly home.

Canada arrives at the summit fresh off Carney’s pledge to increase defence spending by $9.3 billion this year in order to meet the existing two per cent target.

Going to five per cent is another matter entirely. Carney has said it’s not about picking a number and spending up to it.

Prior to the summit, there were published reports that NATO countries all agreed to hit the five per cent target over the next decade. That is unlikely to please countries such as Spain, which openly balked at the U.S.-imposed target. 

Even Belgium’s conservative prime minister, Bart De Wever, was skeptical when asked about it on Monday.

“I’m not comfortable at all with the five per cent figure. It’s huge,” De Wever told Canadian journalists following a Second World War commemoration ceremony in Antwerp. 

“The breakdown in 3.5 and 1.5 helps a bit … but 3.5 means that we almost have to triple what we’re spending on defence. We’ve jumped to two per cent, we’re more or less in the same situation as Canada.”

Veteran Canadian diplomat Sen. Peter Boehm said avoiding the new target would be hard in the current geopolitical climate. 

“There may not be much of a choice,” Boehm told CBC News in a recent interview.

A former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, said no one should underestimate Washington’s single-minded focus on the target — and the words Trump wants to hear. 

“The emphasis that the U.S. is looking for is everybody to say, ‘Yeah, we mean it,'” said Volker in a briefing by the Center for European Policy Analysis. “We have a plan. Five per cent is real. We’re going to get there. We have a real threat in Europe. We have to do more.”

Reaching the combined five per cent goal would require Canada to spend perhaps as much as $50 billion more annually on the military and defence infrastructure.

“I’m fairly confident that Canada and the whole of the alliance can do this,” Rutte told CBC’s Power & Politics last week during the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta.

He said the current pledge, agreed to more than a decade ago, is no longer enough in light of the growing conflicts in the world.

“With the two per cent, we simply cannot go and defend ourselves,” Rutte told host David Cochrane. He said it may be enough in 2025, but not in three to five years. 

“We have ramp up the defence spending.”

Boehm says he believes the five per cent goal is achievable for Canada depending “on the timeline and the effectiveness of procurement.”

The country’s moribund defence procurement has been the country’s “Achilles’ heel since almost forever” and Boehm said it will “require creativity to achieve those percentage goals.”

In a change from past years, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited only to attend the leaders’ dinner, not the meeting of allies.

Rutte insisted on Monday that Ukraine would remain a vital topic.

“You will see important language about Ukraine, including connecting the defence spending up to 2035 to Ukraine, and the need for Ukraine to stay in the fight,” Rutte told reporters in Brussels ahead of the summit. 

Zelenskyy, however, hasn’t yet publicly confirmed he’ll attend the dinner.