Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said NATO nations must provide a ‘realistic pathway’ to ramp up their defense spending to hit a 5% threshold – including the U.S.
‘I understand there’s domestic politics, after decades of building up vast social safety nets that maybe don’t want to take away from that and invest more in national security,’ Rubio said while speaking at a NATO foreign ministers event in Brussels. ‘But the events of the last few years… full-scale ground war in the heart of Europe as a reminder that hard power is still necessary as a deterrent.
‘We do want to leave here with an understanding that we are on a pathway, a realistic pathway to every single one of the members committee, and fulfilling a promise to reach up to 5% of spending,’ Rubio said, adding that ‘the United States will have to increase its percentage.’
While the majority of the 32 NATO members currently spend 2% of their nation’s GDP per previous NATO commitments, eight nations – Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain – have yet to meet their defense spending pledges.
Only Poland spends over 4% of its GDP on defense, while four other nations spend over 3% – Estonia, the U.S., Latvia and Greece.
Despite the severe spending increases this will demand from all NATO nations, Rubio’s push is unlikely to be met with serious opposition as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and other NATO allies, have increasingly called for more defense spending.
Washington in 2024 spent 3.38% of its GDP on defense, which equated to more than $967 billion, according to NATO figures released in July.
The U.S. closed out 2024 with a GDP of over $29.7 billion, which means it is on track to spend $1 trillion on defense in 2025 if it maintains the current expenditure rate of 3.38%.
Rubio did not detail what timeframe he expected to see nations increase their defense spending to hit the 5% threshold, though if the U.S. did it in 2025, that would mean allocating nearly $1.49 trillion for defense – a figure that is higher than the current total spent by the entire NATO alliance, which collectively spent $1.47 trillion in 2024.
‘As we speak right now, the United States is as active in NATO as it has ever been,’ Rubio said. ‘Some of this hysteria and hyperbole that I see in the global media and some domestic media in the United States about NATO is unwarranted.
‘The United States president [has] made clear. He supports NATO. We’re going to remain in NATO,’ he reaffirmed.
Rubio said the only way NATO nations can truly deter aggressor nations like Russia and China is by collectively increasing each NATO nation’s capabilities to contribute to the alliance’s collective defense.
‘We understand that’s a tradeoff,’ Rubio said. ‘We have to do it every single year in our country – I assure you that we also have domestic needs.
‘But we’ve prioritized defense because of the role we’ve played in the world, and we want our partners to do the same,’ Rubio confirmed.