Europe should welcome Trump's NATO spending call, says Poland's Tusk

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe should welcome rather than rebuff U.S. President Donald Trump's call for other NATO members to ramp up their military spending, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday, stressing the importance of security to the continent.

Trump has said members of the military alliance should spend 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence – a huge increase from the current 2% goal and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently achieves.

This demand, repeated on Monday as he took office, is a reminder of the focus he put on NATO spending during his first term - and his threats not to protect allies who fail to spend enough. Officials from NATO countries have not endorsed the 5% target.

"We shouldn't be irritated. We shouldn't be appalled," Tusk told lawmakers of the European Parliament. "Some think it's extravagant or it is a brutal or malicious warning."

Tusk, whose country has the six-month rotating EU presidency now, said a "time of comfort" was over as the new U.S. president was saying Europe needed to bear a greater share of responsibility for its own security.

"Only an ally can wish another ally to get stronger. This is not what an opponent of Europe would say," Tusk said.

Poland spends the most among NATO members as a proportion of its GDP at a NATO-estimated 4.1% in 2024, while eight of the military and political alliance's 32 members spend less than 2%.

"I would like to tell you that this is a time when Europe cannot afford to save on security," Tusk told the EU assembly.

Tusk echoed the view of EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia, that Russia poses an existential threat to EU security and that the only way to address this was to increase defence spending.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Hugh Lawson)