ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tomorrow, President Trump is expected to head to The Hague in the Netherlands for his first NATO summit of his second term. The alliance is one that Trump has criticized for years, saying that the U.S. is doing more than its fair share when it comes to defense spending. As NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram reports, that issue will be front and center this week.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: This summit will be a shorter one than usual, in part because nations will mainly focus on just one issue - upping their country's defense spending.
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MARK RUTTE: The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defense.
SHIVARAM: That's NATO secretary Mark Rutte speaking in London earlier this month.
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RUTTE: The fact is, danger will not disappear, even when the war in Ukraine ends.
SHIVARAM: Ten years ago, when Russia annexed Crimea, NATO nations agreed to boost defense spending to 2% of their GDP. Now, with no signs of an end to Russia's war in Ukraine, NATO's new goal is to increase that spending to 5% in the next decade. That hike is something President Trump has long been calling for. He says Europe isn't contributing enough to its own defense, and NATO's Rutte agrees.
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RUTTE: It is vital that every member of NATO pulls their weight because America has carried too much of the burden for too long.
SHIVARAM: The goal is to divide the increased spending on defense into two parts. Three-point-five percent will focus on defense spending in the traditional sense, like weapons and fighter planes. The second part, 1.5%, will be somewhat flexible spending on military logistics and cybersecurity - things like making sure infrastructure, roads and bridges are able to carry military tanks that need to get transported. That smaller category provides some flexibility on how nations can choose to invest, but the overall increase is still a massive jump and one that will be difficult for many countries to meet, says Jim Townsend. He worked on NATO issues for decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
JIM TOWNSEND: That's what nations will be struggling with when they leave The Hague and they go back home and they say, all right, we got to start - you know, what are we going to cut? Are we going to raise taxes? Are we going to cut education? But we've - we're going to have to meet these defense spending goals.
SHIVARAM: The final agreement has not yet been made, but Spain has already said they won't be committing to the 5% goal, and Trump has already said he doesn't think the U.S. should have to, either. It's not typical that any NATO nation would get a carve-out from what's agreed to at the summit. The 32 nations are supposed to unanimously agree to the goals that are set. But Trump has been critical of some of the alliance's norms for a while now - like Article 5, the clause that says if one NATO nation is attacked, all will help defend. Here he is speaking from the Oval Office in March.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I've said that to them. I said, if you're not going to pay, we're not going to defend. I said that seven years ago.
SHIVARAM: Trump's tariffs on allies have raised questions about his commitment to NATO partners, too, says Julie Smith, who was the ambassador to NATO in the Biden administration. And so have some of the other things he said.
JULIE SMITH: His comments about making Canada the 51st state and his series of comments about getting Greenland one way or another has really sent a bit of a chill across the alliance. So it will be a bit of a tense summit, with a number of open questions about America's continuing commitment to the NATO alliance.
SHIVARAM: But the fact that Trump is showing up to the summit at all might be considered enough of a win for allies, especially given the U.S. strikes on Iran over the weekend. The president abruptly left last week's G7 summit in Canada a day early because of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. This summit, though, will already be brief - just one day of discussions on Wednesday and a glamorous dinner Tuesday night, hosted by the king of the Netherlands.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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