How much allied countries invest in military spending

The European allies and Canada, but also the United States itself, are far from invest 5% of their GDP in defense as requested by American President Donald Trump. Allied leaders agreed to allocate at least 2% to military spending, a figure that 23 of the 32 have already achieved and which the others intend to reach in the near future, following a roadmap.

However, it is expected that this commitment will be renewed at the time of next NATO summit in June in The Hague the first Trump will attend as part of his second term in the White House.

There is no agreed figure yet, but some allies are talking about setting the 3% as new target while the Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte, refuses to propose a specific figure even though he has clarified that 2% is “not enough” and that, if capacity needs arising from the internal planning process are taken into account of NATO, “it will be above 3%”.

The latest NATO data for 2024 shows a progressive increase in defense spending compared to 2014, when only three allies reached the 2% target. European allies and Canada are forecast to have devoted 2.02% of their GDP to defense in June, up from 1.78% in 2023 and the 2% they committed to a decade ago in occasion of the 2014 NATO leaders’ summit in Wales.

Countries with the highest spending is Poland (4.12%), Estonia (3.43%)the United States (3.38%), Latvia (3.15%) and Greece (3.08%). Lithuania, Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Romania, North Macedonia, Norway, Bulgaria, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Turkey, France, the Netherlands, Albania and Montenegro are also expected to exceed the 2% target by June.

At the other extreme there is Spain, the country that invests less than its GDP in the defense of the entire Alliance: 1.28% of its gross domestic product behind Slovenia and Luxembourg (1.29% of GDP in both cases) and Belgium (1.30%).