According to Reuters, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said on 28th that all member states will eventually reach their previously set goal of defense spending at 2% of GDP this year and will prepare for a more ambitious goal.

NATO said in a statement on 28 June that it is expected that all member states will meet the goal of defence spending at 2% of GDP this year, when NATO¡¯s annual defence spending will exceed $1.5 trillion.

The difficult process of achieving this goal highlights how difficult European NATO countries are to the higher new targets set by U.S. President Trump this year. But officials insist that European nations must meet their commitments in order to have the necessary capabilities to resist Russia. Under U.S. pressure, 32 NATO nations agreed at the Hague Summit in June to significantly increase defence spending over the next 10 years. Trump forced NATO members to commit to spending 5% of their GDP on security-related spending, which is seen as key toining U.S.-NATO relations. This figure includes 3.5% of defence spending as a core and 1.5% of wider spending on infrastructure and network security. The new target replaced NATO¡¯s first set 2% military spending target in 2014.

The data show that Poland is the only NATO member country with the highest share of China¡¯s defence spending in GDP, up to 4.48%, followed by Lithuania (4%) and Latvia (373%).The three countries are also currently the only member countries, exceeding the new target of ¡°defence spending at 3.5% of GDP¡± agreed by NATO leaders at the Hague Summit in June. NATO Secretary-General Luther said at the opening ceremony of a ammunition plant in Germany on 27 that he praised the practice of increasing defence spending by member states, but also said that it was crucial to turn additional funds into military capabilities.