Trump's Vision Spells Trouble for NATO

President-elect Donald Trump's latest demands of America's NATO partnersthat they cede territory to the U.S. and spend more on defense than Washington itself does-risk undermining allies' confidence and potentially emboldening adversaries.

In a news conference on Tuesday, the president-elect raised the prospect of forcibly taking over Canada and Greenland, which is part of Denmark. Canada and Denmark are founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the U.S. is treaty-bound to protect them.

Trump also said NATO allies should raise their militarget to tary-spending around 5% of gross domestic product from the current target of at least 2%. The U.S. last year spent roughly 3.4% of GDP on its military, in line with recent years, NATO said.

Trump's comments can be seen as opening bids in hardnosed negotiations more than policy statements, some analysts and Trump advisers said.

Still, they are unprecedented. Never before has someone elected as U.S. president publicly discussed using military force or other coercive measures to take over part or all of closely allied countries or demanded such high levels of military spending.

Low military spending by Canada and European members of NATO has long angered Trump, who during his first term threatened to withdraw from the alliance if outlays didn't increase. He has said European countries should reimburse the U.S. for decades of protection and has called them freeloaders for not adequately funding their own security.

Fraying support

The new pressure from Trump comes amid uncertainty over his approach to the war in Ukraine. Under President Biden, NATO members have largely been unified on the need to support Kyiv in its fight to eject Russian forces.

Trump has remained cagey on his approach to the war. He has pledged to end Europe's biggest conflict since World War II but has given no details. Many European leaders fear Trump will reduce or end U.S. support for Ukraine.

Boosting NATO spending and acquiring Greenland are both objectives Trump raised during his first term. Denmark said then, and again recently, that Greenland isn't for sale.

Critics said Trump's comments run counter to fundamental tenets of the modern world order and risk endorsing authoritarians' use of force, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and China's efforts to intimidate Taiwan.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said European leaders he spoke to on Wednesday reacted with "incomprehension" to Trump's remarks. "The principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country, whether it is to our east or west, and every state must keep to it," regardless of its size and power, he said.

Trump's threats to pull the U.S. from NATO unilaterally prompted Congress in 2023 to pass legislation preventing a president from withdrawing from the alliance without approval of the Senate or an act of Congress. NATO was created by a treaty signed in 1949 and ratified by the Senate.

His approach with allies holds the prospect of gutting NATO and its capacity for deterrence without the U.S. formally withdrawing.

Dramatically increasing military spending is difficult because European countries are under extreme spending pressure because of generally weak economies and because arms producers are already struggling to deliver equipment that has already been ordered. NATO military officials have complained that the combination of slow increases in supply and quickly rising demand are bidding up the cost of arms more than expanding arsenals.

Most European countries have significantly increased military spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago, though many remain below the 2% target. Some that have reached the target appear likely to fall back in coming years because of weak government finances. Almost all face painful trade-offs with social or environmental spending to meet NATO obligations.

Spend efficiently

Spending increases began following Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and accelerated during Trump's first term, which began in 2017. NATO SecretaryGeneral Mark Rutte, who recently visited Trump, and his predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, both credited Trump with helping prompt Europeans to increase their spending.

NATO allies "weren't paying their bills," Trump said on Tuesday. "I said we're not going to protect you if you're not paying the bills."

Leaders of most European NATO members say they need to increase security spending because of threats from Russia, and to spend more efficiently. A new spending target above 2% has been hotly debated since NATO's annual summit in Washington in July.

Rutte said in December that the new target should be "considerably more than 2%," but a specific figure remains under discussion.

Only NATO member Poland comes close to 5%. That country last year spent roughly 4.1% of GDP on defense. No other member was above 4%.

The last time the U.S. spent 5% of GDP on defense was in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, according to the Defense Department.

Trump's new 5% target "is a made-up number with no basis in reality," said former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder. He said European NATO members now spend three times as much as Russia does on defense, and at 5% Europe would outspend Russia by $750 billion annually, spending roughly 10 times what Russia spends.

NATO's Rutte said in December that any increase in spending must be paired with greater efficiency, focusing on innovation and joint purchasing. He said NATO must "get rid of that idiotic system" where each member sets national requirements, which "makes it almost impossible to buy together, to have joint procurement." If NATO doesn't boost efficiency, he said, "even with 4% you can't defend yourselves." Daalder, who served under former President Barack Obama, said he fears "the real purpose of setting this high a bar is to give Trump an excuse either to withdraw from NATO or not to have to fulfill America's treaty obligation to come to NATO's defense in case it is attacked." Early last year, Trump said while campaigning that if a low-spending NATO ally were attacked by Russia, "No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. ...You got to pay your bills."

Germany has missed NATO's 2% target for so long that it now faces a shortfall of more than $230 billion since 1990, according to recent analysis by Germany's IFO Institute. Italy's gap is more than $130 billion, and Spain's is more than $80 billion.