Sir Keir Starmer is about to make his last appearance on the global stage as Prime Minister in what may be a legacy-defining moment – unless Donald Trump ruins it for him.
Starmer arrives at this week’s Nato summit in Turkey after a last-minute defence spending announcement he hopes will satisfy allies and salvage the UK’s reputation as a leading military nation.
But he will fear being berated by the US President at the summit in Ankara, who has been critical of the UK’s policy on Iran and has often chided him for not doing enough.
Will the Prime Minister’s £15bn spending plan please the US President? Starmer said it would bring defence spending to 4.2 per cent of UK GDP if energy security and critical infrastructure is included, closer to the 5 per cent pledged at last year’s Nato summit.
But a close look at the numbers, if Trump looks that closely, signals trouble.
By 2030, Britain’s spending will still only reach 2.7 per cent, as opposed to the 3 per cent which is a preferred milestone for allies aiming to reach 3.5 per cent by 2035. (The Hague commitment allows 1.5 per cent expenditure on related services, bringing the total to 5 per cent.)
The Prime Minister would like to be remembered as the man who kept the special relationship with the US on track. Instead, “Starmer might get a scolding from Trump”, warns Bence Nemeth, a senior lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London.
Nemeth thinks the commitment will not be enough for Trump, who believes European nations should step up. “Probably, the American expectation is that the UK should lead a more European Nato, as it traditionally has,” he added.
The recent increase in spending is just enough to keep the UK in the middle of the pack, Nemeth said – not in overall spending, but in terms of defence spending as a share of GDP. He said the UK now ranks around 12th in Nato.
The spending decision was announced a day after the Nato chief, Mark Rutte, visited London. He had just been to Washington and assured the US President that allies were bucking up.
Rutte presented a chart titled the “Trump Trillion” and claimed that more than a trillion had been spent on defence by non-US Nato allies since 2017, with European orders for American weapons creating nearly 200,000 jobs for Americans. Even so, Trump reiterated that not everyone was meeting commitments.
Matthew Whitaker, the permanent representative of the United States to Nato, acknowledged the allies were buying more American but said that those lagging behind must get with the plan. “Peer pressure could be useful,” he said.
Rutte may have applied that pressure on Starmer. It is one thing for the Nato chief to explain Spain’s low defence spending – which never signed up for 5 per cent – but quite another to find excuses for Britain as a laggard. A senior diplomat put it mildly when he said Britain was going through a “fiscally difficult” phase.
Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, explains charts showing Nato spending rises while in a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. He claimed that more than a trillion was spent on defence since 2017 (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/ AP)Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen was more outspoken about concern among allies at the UK dragging its feet with the DIP.
“A spending gap in the UK is a matter of concern for the rest of Nato,” he said last month.
“We have seen how the Spanish prime minister, [Pedro] Sánchez, has raised doubts of his commitments to the decision made at the Nato summit in The Hague [last year]. If there are doubts about the UK trajectory towards that goal, it is a matter of concern in other countries.”
Spain is seen as an outlier, with a leader from a socialist party. Far away from Russia, it has less to worry about. Starmer, on the other hand, has admitted Russia could attack Nato territory by the end of the decade. Unlike Spain, the UK is seen as a hard military power, particularly, but not only, by smaller Nato members.
Ankara, Turkey, where final preparations are under way to host tomorrow’s 2026 Nato summit (Photo: Burak Kara/Getty)Even if it isn’t a part of the EU, “we need the UK as a strong defence partner”, a Brussels-based diplomat from one of the central European nations told me a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
As America’s security coverage became unreliable under Trump’s constant threats of withdrawal, allies looked to Britain more than ever – not least for its nuclear deterrent. One of the first things the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, did after coming to power was strengthen his country’s defence agreement with the UK under which an armed attack on one will be treated as a threat to the other.
However, there has been concern about whether the UK has the means to deliver on its commitment. During the run-up to the Turkey summit, anxiety has pervaded Nato headquarters, especially since John Healey resigned as defence secretary over a lack of funding to meet its commitments.
Dan Jarvis, his replacement, was in a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels days later when US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, accused the low spenders (including the UK) of “free riding”.
Sir Keir Starmer stands beneath a display of UAV drones following the publication of the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan (Photo: Stefan Rousseau/AFP)Ex-Nato leader Rasmussen noted that the Danes and several Baltic states were planning to spend 3.5 per cent by 2030, and so could others. It is “realistic”, he said.
Despite Starmer insisting Britain’s spending increase is a massive step forward, the UK still lags behind Germany and Poland. Germany will reach 3.7 per cent by 2030 and Poland is already at 4.8 per cent.
Moreover, there is some mistrust about the UK’s stated commitment and whether it can raise the money needed to hit even 2.7 per cent by 2030. Reports suggest the source of nearly £5bn of the total £15bn is unclear.
“Where will all this money suddenly come from? Was it lying under a couch all this time that they have suddenly found?” a European analyst told The i Paper in a candid conversation, expressing disbelief that the money would be spent.
Starmer’s only hope with Trump is to point out how a substantial part of this expanded defence budget could be spent on American kit and make American firms richer.
Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that a spending gap in the UK is a matter of concern for the rest of Nato (Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP)Britain’s ambassador to the US, Christian Turner, highlighted in an op-ed that British investment was flowing “directly to American workers and businesses, because our two nations’ defence industrial bases have long been connected”. He added: “UK investment in US defence programmes supports more than 160,000 American jobs.”
The DIP has allocated £63bn to bolster nuclear security. This includes the purchase of 12 F-35A aircraft capable of carrying nuclear bombs. While British companies would benefit from this contract, so will American company Lockheed Martin – the prime contractor of F-35s.
“By 2035, Lockheed Martin will supply 50 per cent of all fighter jets in Europe,” said Turner. Although he added “at least 15 per cent of every F-35 aircraft is produced in the United Kingdom”.
American AI firms could benefit from hundreds of millions for AI infrastructure and cyber defence.
“There is significant potential for American firms in areas such as AI, cloud and digital targeting, where US companies have major advantages,” said Nemeth, from King’s College London. “But this is ultimately a political decision: Either the UK decides to develop more sovereign systems or it relies more heavily on US systems. My impression is that the UK will rely quite heavily on US systems.”
A Lockheed Martin F-35A multirole fighter jet. At least 15 per cent of every F-35 aircraft is produced in the United Kingdom (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty)A considerable amount of money could potentially be spent on buying American, but the pie could shrink if the UK decides to procure some of what it can buy from European and Asian suppliers or to build at home.
For instance, part of the £5bn allocated for drone transformation could benefit American companies but it could also be invested in the UK. Nemeth said a plethora of drone manufacturers from Portugal, Germany and even the US were popping up in Swindon, which is emerging as the UK’s leading drone manufacturing and testing cluster.
Starmer’s strategy so far is to spend more and reassure Nato allies, especially Washington. Whitaker, the US envoy, acknowledged Starmer had had to make “difficult political choices”, perhaps a relief for the outgoing PM.
He is leaving the burden of fulfilling his defence commitments to Andy Burnham, his likely successor, whom Trump has – perhaps concerningly – already dismissed as “very liberal”.
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