Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on April 24, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
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NATO's Mark Rutte urges Europe and Canada to significantly boost defence spending, highlighting a 19.4% increase in 2024 but calling for more in 2025.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has called for European countries and Canada to make a "quantum leap" in boosting their contribution to the alliance.
Rutte, who is visiting Washington for talks with U.S. officials, wrote in an annual report published Thursday that European NATO allies and Canada invested 19.4% more in defence in 2024 than the previous year in real terms but that these efforts should be accelerated in 2025.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said NATO allies should spend 5% of gross domestic product on defence – a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently reaches.
"European Allies and Canada must make a quantum leap when it comes to the contributions and capabilities they bring to bear. To do so, it will be essential to invest substantially more," Rutte wrote.
The United States accounted for an estimated 64% of the alliance's defence expenditure in 2024, while European NATO members and Canada made up 36%, according to the report, which also noted that last year 22 out of the alliance's 32 countries met NATO's target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.
(Reporting by Lili Bayer; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
The article discusses NATO's call for increased defence investment by European countries and Canada.
Trump suggests NATO allies should spend 5% of GDP on defence.
22 out of 32 NATO countries met the 2% GDP defence spending target.
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