Many observers, including NATO’s official communications site, hailed June’s NATO summit as “historic”, primarily due to a landmark pledge by core member states to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 – a significant shift from the current target of 2%.
President Trump played a key role in pushing for this increase and has framed the summit as a major foreign policy win. “It’s a great victory for everybody, I think, and we will be equalised,” Trump said of the new spending commitment.
