Ahead of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth again pushed NATO allies to increase the share of defence spending from two per cent to five per cent of GDP, adding that the demand must be met before the NATO summit at the end of June.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte proposed that countries increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP and commit a further 1.5% to broader security-related spending.
The American President Donald Trump earlier threatened that the United States could "absolutely" withdraw from NATO if its allies' defense spending did not meet "standards."
NATO member states committed in 2014 to increase defence spending to two per cent of their GDP within ten years. In June last year, a NATO report found that 23 of the 32 member states had achieved their defence spending target of two per cent of GDP.
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