NATO defense ministers to hold final talks on defense spending increase
The defense chiefs of NATO member countries are set to hold final-stage talks on a timeline for increasing defense spending.
A meeting of NATO defense ministers opened on Thursday in the Belgian capital of Brussels. US President Donald Trump is pushing alliance members to raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
Ahead of the meeting, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: "You can't freeload. You need to spend." He added that NATO "cannot and will not be reliance on America in a world of a lot of threats."
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said European and Canadian allies are expected to step up defense spending. He said, "I'm pretty confident we will get there as a result."
To meet the 5 percent target, the NATO chief has proposed that member nations increase their defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, with an additional 1.5 percent allocated to security-related expenditures by 2032.
Some NATO officials suggest that timeframe is unrealistic.
NATO aims to reach an agreement at a summit meeting scheduled to take place in the Netherlands late this month.
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