NATO chief urges allies to do more and says their freedom and prosperity depend on it

CITYnews halifax / By Lorne Cook, The Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday urged the 32 member nations to devote more funds, equipment and political energy to the world’s biggest military alliance, as the United States steps back from its leading security role in Europe.

“In 2025, we need to significantly increase our efforts to ensure NATO remains a key source of military advantage for all our nations. Our continued freedom and prosperity depend on it,” Rutte wrote in his annual report.

NATO has been in disarray since February, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that America’s security priorities lie elsewhere -– in Asia and on its own borders -– and that Europe would have to look after its own security and that of Ukraine, in future.

Rutte’s report was posted on NATO’s website without any obvious publicity. In previous years, secretaries-general have promoted their annual reports with news conferences and press releases. NATO did not respond when asked why the approach has changed.

Rutte was in Washington on Thursday for meetings with senior U.S. officials, two months before he’s due to chair a summit of U.S. President Donald Trump and his NATO counterparts in the Netherlands.

The leaders are expected to set on a new NATO guideline for defense spending. In 2023, as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entered its second year, they agreed that all allies should spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on their military budgets.

Estimates in the annual report showed that 22 allies had reached that goal last year, compared to a previous forecast of 23. Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain did not. Spain does expect to reach the goal this year, but the new goal could be over 3%.

The United States is now estimated to have spent 3.19% of GDP in 2024, down from 3.68% a decade ago when all NATO members vowed to increase defense spending after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

While it’s the only ally to have lower spending as a percentage of GDP than in 2014, the U.S. still spends more in dollar terms than the others combined. The report estimated that total NATO military spending last year reached around $1.3 trillion.

In a sign of just how dominant the United States is within NATO, Hegseth told the Europeans and Canada in February that Ukraine would not get all its territory back from Russia and would not be allowed to join their military alliance.

“NATO support for Ukraine remained strong in 2024,” Rutte wrote in the report, even as doubts surround the Trump administration’s commitment to the country as ceasefire talks falter.

“Looking to the future, NATO allies are united in their desire for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Rutte wrote. It was a low-key assessment of backing compared to that of his predecessor Jens Stoltenberg just a year ago.

“Ukraine must prevail as an independent, sovereign nation,” Stoltenberg wrote in his last annual report. “Supporting Ukraine is not charity, it is in our own security interest.”

Lorne Cook, The Associated Press