Why is NATO boosting defence spending and can Europe afford it?
In a political win for US President Donald Trump, NATO member states have endorsed a big new defence spending target.
In what marks a major shift for NATO, the bloc's member states have agreed to raise defence spending to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
The move will inject billions more dollars into armies and weapons, raising questions over how governments will foot the bill.
With public budgets under strain, many European politicians dismissed the target as unachievable earlier this year, when US President Donald Trump demanded it.
Europe's priorities now appear to be shifting to security, citing growing threats from Russia.
And Chinese goods are flooding markets from Southeast Asia to Europe.
Plus, top economists call for debt relief in developing nations.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
30 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
NATO countries' budgets compared: Defence vs healthcare and education
NATO leaders signed a deal to increase defence spending as the annual alliance summit in The Hague drew to a close after two days of meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday. At the top of the agenda was a big new defence spending target demanded by US President Donald Trump, which will see NATO members spend 5 percent of their economic output on core defence and security. The new spending target, which is to be achieved over the next 10 years, is a jump worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the current goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Which countries meet the current target of two percent? In 2006, NATO defence ministers agreed to commit at least 2 percent of their GDP to defence spending. However, few did. It wasn't until Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 that member states agreed to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence by 2024 at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. Currently, 23 of the 32 member countries have met this target, with the alliance as a whole spending 2.61 percent of its combined GDP on defence last year. Poland leads NATO countries in defence spending, committing 4.1 percent of its GDP, followed by Estonia and the United States at 3.4 percent each, Latvia at 3.2 percent, and Greece at 3.1 percent. NATO countries bordering Russia, such as Estonia and Lithuania, have significantly increased their defence spending — from less than one percent of their GDP just 10 years ago. The only NATO country whose defence spending in 2024 was less, as a percentage of its GDP, than in 2014? The United States. How will the new target of 5 percent work? The new target of 5 percent GDP is measured in two parts: 3.5 percent of GDP on pure defence spending, such as troops and weapons 1.5 percent of GDP on broader defence and security investments, such as: upgrading infrastructure including roads, bridges, ports, airfields, military vehicles, cybersecurity and protection for energy pipelines This surge in NATO defence spending comes amid perceived threats from Russia, in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war. Mark Rutte, NATO's secretary general and the Netherlands' former prime minister, described Russia as 'the most significant and direct threat' to NATO. Alliance members will be expected to meet the target by 2035, but the target will be reviewed again in 2029. Where will the money come from? NATO members will have to decide on their own where they'll find the extra cash to allocate to defence. Rutte stated it was 'not a difficult thing' for members to agree to raise defence spending to 5 percent of GDP because of the rising threat from Russia. But ministers in the UK, for example, have not made it clear where they will get the extra money to spend on defence. The European Union, meanwhile, is allowing member states to raise defence spending by 1.5 percent of GDP each year for four years without any disciplinary steps that would come into effect once a national deficit is above 3 percent of GDP. Additionally, EU ministers approved the creation of a 150-billion euro ($174bn) arms fund using EU borrowing to give loans to countries for joint defence projects. When asked whether NATO members should commit to the 5 percent target, US President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday, 'I think they should. We've been supporting NATO so long, in many cases, I believe, paying almost 100 percent of the cost.' How does defence spending compare to other areas? When a country is asked to spend more on defence, that money has to come from somewhere. Unless governments expand their budgets or raise new revenue, increased military spending can strain other sectors that people rely on every day — like healthcare and education. Currently, none of NATO's 32 members spends more on defence than either healthcare or education. However, if the new 5 percent defence spending target is adopted, then 21 countries that currently invest less than five percent in education would end up allocating more to the military than to schooling. The table below compares NATO countries' budgets, highlighting how defence spending measures up against healthcare and education expenditures.
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump administration sues Maryland court system over deportation rulings
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has filed an extraordinary lawsuit against the Maryland district court system and its federal judges, accusing them of having 'used and abused' their powers to stymie deportations. The complaint was lodged late on Tuesday. In its 22 pages, the administration accuses Maryland's federal courts of 'unlawful, anti-democratic' behaviour for placing limits on Trump's deportation policies. Fifteen district judges are named among the defendants, as is a clerk of court, one of the administrative officials in the court system. The complaint advances an argument that Trump and his allies have long made publicly: that the president has a mandate from voters to carry out his campaign of mass deportation — and that the courts are standing in the way. 'Injunctions against the Executive Branch are particularly extraordinary because they interfere with that democratically accountable branch's exercise of its constitutional powers,' the lawsuit reads. It seeks an immediate injunction against a recent ruling from Chief Judge George Russell III, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Russell had issued a standing order that would automatically take effect each time an immigrant files a petition for habeas corpus — in other words, a petition contesting their detention. The chief judge's order prevents the Trump administration from deporting the immigrant in question for a period of two business days after the petition is filed. That time frame, Russell added, can be extended at the discretion of the court. The idea is to protect an immigrant's right to due process — their right to a fair hearing in the legal system — so that they have the time to appeal their deportation if necessary. But the Trump administration said that Russell's order, and other orders from federal judges in Maryland, do little more than subvert the president's power to exercise his authority over immigration policy. 'Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect,' the lawsuit argued. Trump's immigration policies have faced hundreds of legal challenges since the president took office for his second term in January. Tuesday's lawsuit admits as much, citing that fact as evidence of judicial bias against Trump's immigration agenda. 'In the first 100 days of President Trump's current term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, requiring the Supreme Court to intervene again and again in recent weeks,' the lawsuit said. The Supreme Court has upheld the right to due process, writing in recent cases like JGG v Trump that immigrants must be able to seek judicial review for their cases. But critics have argued that other recent decisions have undermined that commitment. Earlier this week, for instance, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court's ruling that barred the US government from deporting immigrants to third-party countries without prior notice. Tuesday's lawsuit against the Maryland federal court system appears poised to test whether the judicial branch can continue to serve as a check against the executive branch's powers, at least as far as immigration is concerned. The lawsuit attacks Maryland's immigration-related court orders on several fronts. For example, it questions whether 'immediate and irreparable injury' is likely in the deportation cases. It also asserts that the federal courts are impeding immigration courts — which fall under the authority of the executive branch — from greenlighting deportations. But the complaint also emphasises the need for speed in executing the removals of immigrants from the US. 'Removals can take months of sensitive diplomacy to arrange and often do not completely come together until the last minute,' the Trump administration's lawsuit said. 'A delay can undo all of those arrangements and require months of additional work before removal can be attempted again.' Maryland is a reliably Democratic-leaning state, and the Trump administration has been dealt some significant setbacks in its federal courts. That, in turn, has led the president and his allies to denounce the courts for 'judicial overreach', a theme reprised in Tuesday's court filing. One of the most prominent immigration cases unfolding in the US is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and resident of Maryland who was deported despite a protection order allowing him to remain in the country. His lawyers have maintained he fled El Salvador to escape gang violence. His deportation was challenged before District Judge Paula Xinis, one of the judges named in Tuesday's complaint. Xinis ruled in early April that the US must 'facilitate and effectuate' Abrego Garcia's return from the El Salvador prison where he was being held, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision — though it struck the word 'effectuate' for being unclear. The Maryland judge then ordered the Trump administration to provide updates about the steps it was taking to return Abrego Garcia to the US. She has since indicated the administration could be held in contempt of court for failing to do so. Abrego Garcia was abruptly returned to the US on June 6, after more than two and a half months imprisoned in El Salvador. The Trump administration said it brought him back to face criminal charges for human trafficking in Tennessee. That case is currently ongoing, and Abrego Garcia has denied the charges against him. That legal proceeding, and Xinis's orders, were not explicitly named in Tuesday's lawsuit. But the complaint offered a broad critique of orders like hers. 'Defendants' lawless standing orders are nothing more than a particularly egregious example of judicial overreach interfering with Executive Branch prerogatives,' the lawsuit argued, 'and thus undermining the democratic process.'
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Did the US and Israel really obliterate Iran's nuclear facilities?
Did the US and Israel really obliterate Iran's nuclear facilities? NewsFeed A leaked intelligence report has cast doubt on Trump and Netanyahu's claims that their attacks on Iran destroyed its nuclear programme. Analysts say some facilities weren't even hit, while 400kg of uranium is unaccounted for. Soraya Lennie takes a look. Video Duration 02 minutes 23 seconds 02:23 Video Duration 02 minutes 56 seconds 02:56 Video Duration 02 minutes 22 seconds 02:22 Video Duration 02 minutes 02 seconds 02:02 Video Duration 00 minutes 44 seconds 00:44 Video Duration 00 minutes 18 seconds 00:18 Video Duration 00 minutes 46 seconds 00:46
