NATO summit opens in The Hague with 5% spending target in doubt

NATO's 32 leaders gathered in The Hague on Tuesday for a summit that was meant to showcase unity on a new defence spending benchmark but instead opened with the alliance's most basic fractures on public display. The centrepiece proposal, a commitment for each member to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defence, has already been rejected by Spain, while the American president who champions the figure has simultaneously declared his own country should be exempt from it.

Spain breaks ranks on the 5% target

Just a week before the summit, Secretary-General Mark Rutte had sounded optimistic that European allies and Canada would agree to invest at least as much of their economic growth on defence as the United States does. That optimism evaporated when Madrid called the 5% figure "unreasonable". Spain spent less than 2% of GDP on defence last year, the lowest in the alliance, according to NATO's own figures. Canada, at 1.45%, was the second-lowest. The alliance operates by consensus, meaning a single objection can block the commitment.

The Spanish position reflects a deeper political calculation. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez leads a minority coalition dependent on regional and left-wing partners who have long opposed higher military outlays. Raising defence spending from roughly 1.9% to 5% would require an additional 30 billion euro annually, roughly 2% of Spanish GDP, a fiscal leap no Spanish government has attempted since the Cold War. Defence officials in Madrid argue the 5% metric is arbitrary, noting that NATO's own capability targets can be met at lower levels if procurement is coordinated.

Trump's contradictory arithmetic

The American position adds a layer of incoherence. Donald Trump has made the 5% figure a personal demand, telling reporters the day after Spain's rejection: "I don't think we should, but I think they should." He singled out Spain and Canada as "low payers" and suggested NATO would "have to deal with Spain." The United States currently spends roughly 3.4% of GDP on defence, well below the 5% threshold Trump wants allies to hit. The White House has not clarified whether the president views the target as aspirational for others but optional for Washington, or whether he expects Congress to appropriate the additional hundreds of billions required to reach 5% of a 27 trillion dollar economy.

European diplomats in The Hague describe the dynamic as familiar from the first Trump administration: a demand for higher burden-sharing paired with scepticism about the alliance's core guarantee. Article 5, the collective defence clause, remains the bedrock of NATO's credibility. Trump has said the United States intends to remain a member, but his repeated threats to withhold protection from allies who fall short on spending, and his imposition of tariffs on European steel, aluminium and automotive exports, have eroded the perception that American security commitments are unconditional.

Ukraine's place at the table remains ambiguous

Kyiv's role at the summit is another unresolved question. Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited, but it is unclear whether he will sit at the main North Atlantic Council table or only attend Tuesday's informal dinner. European allies and Canada wanted Ukraine at the top of the agenda; they are wary that Trump may not want the Ukrainian president to dominate the proceedings. NATO as an organisation does not supply weapons, it provides only non-lethal aid such as fuel, rations, medical supplies, body armour and counter-drone equipment. Individually, however, member states have been the backbone of Kyiv's arsenal. European allies provided 60% of the military support Ukraine received in 2024, coordinated through a NATO logistics hub on the Polish border.

The distinction matters. NATO's institutional role is often overstated in public debate. The alliance has no standing army, no weapons stocks, and no procurement budget. Its military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, is always commanded by an American officer, currently General Christopher Cavoli, but the forces available to him are nationally owned and nationally commanded. The new NATO force model aims to make 300,000 personnel deployable within 30 days across land, sea, air and cyber domains. Defence planners privately doubt the allies can muster those numbers, especially the enablers, air transport, medical evacuation, engineering bridging, that only the United States provides at scale.

The Iran strike complicates the agenda

Days before the summit, Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear installations. The move recalls the 2003 Iraq war, which split NATO between those who joined the US-led coalition, Britain, Spain, Poland, and those who opposed it, notably France and Germany. The Hague meeting was already crowded; the Iran action adds a strategic distraction. Allies are asking whether the strikes were coordinated, whether NATO's Article 4 consultation mechanism, which allows any member to request talks when its territorial integrity or security is threatened, will be invoked, and whether the alliance will be drawn into a wider Middle East confrontation that lies far beyond its Euro-Atlantic mandate.

NATO's founding treaty tasks the organisation with collective defence in the North Atlantic area. Keeping the peace outside that zone is not in its DNA, as the source text notes. Yet the alliance has operated in Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Mediterranean and off the Horn of Africa. The Iran strikes test whether the current leadership in Washington views NATO as a tool for global power projection or strictly as a European security guarantee. European capitals fear the former; the summit's truncated schedule, one dinner, one working session, suggests Rutte wants to avoid that debate entirely.

Spending has risen, but the gap remains wide

There has been progress. After Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, allies pledged to reverse years of defence cuts. The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine turned the 2% GDP guideline into a minimum. Last year, 22 countries were expected to meet it, up from three a decade ago. Poland leads at over 4%, followed by the Baltic states and Greece. Germany, Europe's largest economy, crossed the 2% threshold only recently after a historic policy shift announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022. Yet the proposed jump to 3.5% core spending plus 1.5% for infrastructure, roads, bridges, ports, airfields and civil preparedness, would demand a sustained political commitment that many parliaments have not yet authorised.

The infrastructure component is often overlooked. NATO's military mobility plans require civilian highways, rail gauges and port facilities that can move heavy armour across the continent on short notice. Years of underinvestment mean bottlenecks persist from the Portuguese border to the Suwałki Gap. The 1.5% earmark would fund dual-use upgrades, but national transport ministries control those budgets, not defence ministries. Coordinating them is a bureaucratic challenge that no summit communiqué can resolve.

A deliberately minimal statement

Rutte has drafted an unusually short summit declaration, a tactic designed to prevent the meeting from collapsing into arguments over wording. The two-day format, an informal dinner Tuesday evening, a single working session Wednesday morning, leaves little time for substantive negotiation. That may be the point. With the 5% target blocked by Spain, the US position contradictory, Ukraine's status undefined, and a Middle East crisis erupting, a lengthy communiqué would only expose divisions. A brief statement allows leaders to claim the summit happened without committing to anything they cannot deliver.