This milestone Nato summit has one aim – stop Trump blowing it up ...Middle East

BRUSSELS – It will be all pomp and circumstance as leaders from Nato’s 32 nations convene in The Hague today and tomorrow for what should be a milestone summit. In recent years, these gatherings have been dominated by Russia and Ukraine, but this time the unofficial aim is to placate Donald Trump, who enjoys haranguing European countries for not paying enough for their security.

The Nato leaders are due to dine with the Dutch King, Willem-Alexander, at his palace before pledging to hike defence spending to a combined 5 per cent of GDP by 2032, from the current 2 per cent – and they are ready for Trump to bask in the credit for the turnaround.

The White House has said that Trump will attend the summit, although there is never any guarantee with the US President. At the weekend, before he ordered US strikes on Iranian nuclear targets, dramatically escalating Iran’s conflict with Israel, he notably did not inform his ostensible Nato allies before launching one of the biggest US military actions in recent decades. He already departed last week’s G7 summit in Canada mere hours after arriving, and few would be surprised if Trump skips the Nato shindig, claiming he needs to monitor the crisis.

However, having secured a ceasefire this morning between Israel and Iran following what he called the “12 Day War”, Trump may decide that he can use the Nato summit as a platform to boast of his win in the Middle East.

Regardless of Trump’s attitude towards Nato, the rest of the alliance is still pushing ahead with its new spending plans. Ahead of the summit, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte corralled the alliance’s members to agree the 5 per cent target – 3.5 per cent on core military systems, plus 1.5 per cent for broader security measures, including infrastructure resilience and cyber defences.

The policy shift responds to warnings from Rutte that “Russia could attack a Nato member within five years”. Most members have endorsed the move, but Spain is still holding out against, calling it “unreasonable and counterproductive”. Meanwhile, Nato’s Italian military chief has cautioned that the Israel‑Iran escalation could spill into Europe, amplifying the sense of urgency.

Trump lies behind these debates. His relentless pressure for allies to match what he terms a “fair share” on defence spending has reshaped Nato’s summit format. Reports say the gathering has been shortened, with a pared‑down communiqué that does not even mention Ukraine – all aimed at preventing Trump overshadowing proceedings, or wandering off.

For his part, Rutte has been pragmatic: emphasising alliance unity while aiming to offer Trump a political win. Europe’s compromise – the 3.5 per cent plus 1.5 per cent – is a strategic recalibration that allows broader expenditures to count toward the target. Earlier this month, Rutte went further, saying Nato members had to deliver a “quantum leap” in their collective capabilities, including a 400 per cent jump in air and missile defence.

Across Europe, leaders face a hard political calculus. National electorates may balk at deep budget commitments, especially to meet aspirational 5 per cent targets. They have struggled to achieve the current goals, set at the 2014 Nato summit in Wales, with only 23 members now meeting the twin targets of 2 per cent of GDP and 20 per cent of defence budgets on equipment.

For Sir Keir Starmer, the summit is a chance to shore up his Nato credibility and his position as a leader of the so-called Coalition of the Willing supporting Ukraine. Defence Secretary John Healey has already championed a 5 per cent spending target, warning of a “more dangerous, unpredictable world”. Yet domestic pressures persist: pledging billions more to defence may test Labour’s social investment pledges.

Behind the scenes, there is a grudging recognition that the targets are partly for show to Trump. While the President has galvanised Nato members’ spending, the surge had already begun after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Between 2021 and 2024, EU countries’ total defence spending rose by more than 30 per cent to an estimated €326 billion (£279bn), about 1.9 per cent of the bloc’s GDP.

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But with Trump and his lieutenants – including Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth – threatening to pull back US support from Europe, Nato members are keen to show they are pulling their weight.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent plan to lift curbs on national borrowing to fund defence spending has helped, as has European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposed €800bn (£684bn) defence scheme, which would be exempt from the EU’s rules on debts and deficits.

Nicu Popescu, a former Romanian foreign minister and fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the focus on numbers risked obscuring more strategic considerations about what Nato needs in the 21st century.

“Don’t frame it just on GDP as you need a lot of cheap stocks,” he said. “You need smart stuff, but you also need a lot of cheap, big, old and stupid stuff. You can see that with Russia, which has been using tanks from the 1960s in Ukraine.”

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