Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said that Europe should welcome President Donald Trump’s call for NATO members to increase their military spending rather than reject it.
“We shouldn’t be irritated. We shouldn’t be appalled,” Tusk told members of the European Parliament in Brussels on Jan. 22.
NATO has 32 members, including Finland and Sweden, which joined in 2023 and 2024, respectively. The organization was founded in 1949 at the outset of the Cold War and was largely a U.S.-led buffer against aggression by the Soviet Union, which at the time held sway over Eastern Europe in the form of the Warsaw Pact.
Trump has said the 31 other members should dedicate 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense, a big jump from the current 2 percent target the alliance set in 2014.
He repeated the demand on Jan. 20 after being inaugurated as the 47th U.S. president.
On Jan. 17, Lithuania became the first country to accept Trump’s target, saying it will increase its defense spending to between 5 percent and 6 percent, starting in 2026.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has not endorsed the 5 percent benchmark. The alliance is due to hold a summit in the Netherlands in June, at which a new target might be agreed upon.
“Some think it’s extravagant, or it is a brutal or malicious warning,” Tusk said of Trump’s demands. “Only an ally can wish another ally to get stronger. This is not what an opponent of Europe would say.”
Poland holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union. Tusk said the “time of comfort” under the Biden administration was over, as Trump urged European countries to shoulder more of the burden for their own security.
Russia Poses ‘Existential Threat’
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, speaking at the European Defense Agency’s conference on Jan. 22, said, “Russia poses an existential threat to our security today, tomorrow, and for as long as we underinvest in our defense.”Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, which became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, said: “People say I’m a ‘Russia hawk.’ I think I’m simply realistic about Russia.”
But in just one year, according to provisional NATO estimates for 2024 published in June of that year, that number rose to 23 out of 31.
Poland—the NATO country closest to Ukraine—spent 4.1 percent of its GDP on defense (up from 1.8 percent in 2014).
The lowest spenders were Spain, which spent 1.28 percent of its GDP on defense and recently signaled it would increase it to 1.5 percent.
Poland has a particular sensitivity to Russian aggression.
In 1815, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was partitioned and largely swallowed up by the Russian Empire, and then, after Poland regained its independence in 1918, it was divided by Germany and the Soviet Union under the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Poland emerged from World War II as a communist client state of the Soviet Union and did not regain full independence until December 1989.
Poland joined NATO in 1999 and has been one of the alliance’s most steadfast supporters.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced on Jan. 17 that his country will boost its defense spending to between 5 percent and 6 percent, which will go into effect in 2026.
“The possibility of Russian military aggression is still real but not imminent. We need to increase our efforts to strengthen defense and deterrence significantly, devoting more resources to this end,” Nausėda said.
Lithuania, another former Soviet republic that became independent in 1990, currently spends more than 3 percent of GDP on defense.
