According to The Financial Times, Donald Trump has communicated to his European allies that he wants a defense budget target of 5 percent of GDP.
Donald Trump’s The closest allies have said that Trump, who will become president in January, plans to continue arms aid to Ukraine, The Financial Times reports.
However, Trump has a tough demand for the European NATO allies: Trump wants the NATO countries to raise their defense budget goals from the current 2 percent of the gross national product to 5 percent of the gross national product.
This would mean that many NATO countries would have to multiply the amount of money they spend on defense.
FT says its sources are people who are “aware of the discussions held during December”.
Some of FT’s sources say that Trump will probably be satisfied with the 3.5 percent defense budget goal.
Last week it was reported that the NATO countries have tentatively negotiated on raising the defense budget target to 3% of the gross domestic product. Even Trump’s watered-down demand would therefore be bigger than the intended goal.
Even an increase to 3 percent would mean big challenges for many European NATO countries when the European economy is contracting. Currently, only 23 of NATO’s 32 member countries even reach the current 2 percent goal.
For example, Finland spends about 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense costs. At the top of Europe is Poland, which already spends no less than 4 percent of its GDP on defense costs.
In Häntäpää, for example, you can find Slovenia and Spain, which spend about 1.2 percent of their GDP on defense.