NATO
The Bottom Line
U.S.-European military cooperation is fundamental to the peace and security of the United States and provides valuable partnerships that fortify our defense, security, and crisis-management capabilities around the world.
The coolest thing about NATO is the Principle of Collective Defense, which is the idea that an attack against one of its members is considered as an attack against all (this principle is commonly known as Article 5). Article 5 has been invoked only once, in response to the 9/11 U.S. terrorist attacks. On one of the worst days in our nation’s history, our faithful allies didn’t blink and had our back 1000%.
It’s highly beneficial for the United States to be a leading member of the transatlantic alliance. Make no mistake, we need NATO now as much as we did in 1949, when the group was formed as a defense against Soviet aggression.
The United States is the largest financial contributor to NATO, providing around 16 percent of the cost. It’s important to note that, while the U.S. provides the most money to NATO, we are not the largest spender in terms of percentage of GDP. The U.S. will spend 3.2 percent of GDP on our military in 2025, but spending as a share of GDP is higher in Estonia (3.4 percent), Norway (3.4 percent), Latvia (3.7 percent), Lithuania (4.0 percent) and Poland (4.5 percent).
We must insist that other member countries live up to their end of the bargain and be held accountable for their part of the funding to advance global security.
The good news is that all 32 members of the NATO alliance are expected to meet the 2 percent spending commitment in 2025 – the first time this has happened since the spending target was created in 2014.
There is an argument to be made that this percentage should be increased. However, the “5 percent of GDP by 2035” that was agreed to at the 2025 NATO Summit – a figure that sets a goal of spending 3.5 percent of GDP on core defense requirements to meet NATO capability goals, with the remainder allocated to other defense and security-related spending – is too much for the United States to be spending on defense (see 1787’s Plan of Action for defense spending here)
NATO must be protected at all costs, and we must make sure the alliance survives the Trump/Vance administration.
On the 2016 campaign trail, candidate Trump made several references to NATO’s waning effectiveness, even calling it “obsolete” at one point (he backtracked on this characterization in 2019, saying NATO has “a great purpose, especially with the fact that NATO is becoming much more flexible, in terms of what it looks at,” whatever that means).
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump continued to say he would not defend NATO members if they didn’t meet their defense spending targets. This obviously alarmed many of our European allies all over again, whose anxiety has also been heightened by President Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth as his second administration’s Defense Secretary.
In Hegseth’s book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, he wrote: “Why should America, the European ‘emergency contact number’ for the past century, listen to self-righteous and impotent nations asking us to honor outdated and one-sided defense arrangements they no longer live up to? Maybe if NATO countries actually ponied up for their own defense – but they don’t. They just yell about the rules while gutting their militaries and yelling at America for help.”
Donald Trump’s bombastic campaign rhetoric and Pete Hegseth’s insulting words highlight their belief that, for decades, our European allies have taken advantage of our military protection without paying their fair share financially. They are not necessarily wrong, but their incendiary statements about NATO – especially in combination with how they treat many of our closest allies – are unhelpful, to say the least.
The good news is that NATO members are finally starting to pay up, although this is as much a response to Vladamir Putin’s unrelenting aggression, Europe’s rising apprehension of Russia and China, and President Trump pulling the United States away from global alliances as it is the Trump/Vance administration’s rants and threats (meaning it could have been achieved without Trump & Co. being such jerks about it).
All 32 members of the NATO alliance are expected to meet the 2 percent spending commitment in 2025 – the first time this has happened since the spending target was created in 2014.
Sources:
1. “Funding NATO.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 3 Sept 2025
2. “Defense Expenditures and NATO’s 2% Guideline.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 28 Oct 2024
3. “Defense Expenditures and NATO’s 5% Commitment.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 27 June 2025
4. Katharina Buchholz. “Zeitenwende Is Here: NATO To Reach 2% Goal.” Statista. 2 Sept 2025