The arrival a little over a year ago of him to the White House to carry out his second term in the United States has unleashed a great earthquake in world geopolitics in multiple areas.
One of the aspects on which the North American president has insisted the most has been require countries to allocate 5% of their GDP to defense spending (specifically, 3.5% to basic military needs such as troops, weapons or equipment and 1.5% to defense-related infrastructure).
Finally, At the NATO summit held in The Hague in June 2025, it was agreed that the defense spending target for the year 2035 be set at that . Nevertheless, Spain distanced itself from the agreement. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, considered this figure “unreasonable and counterproductive”, since it would mean carrying out large cuts in social spending.
Trump has also decided to almost completely end military aid to Ukraine. The union of the demand for increased defense spending of the American president and the need to alleviate the lack of US support for Ukraine has caused the European defense spending has risen abruptly.
From 234,000 to 381,000 million euros
According to him, from 2020 to 2025 he military spending of the 27 member states of the European Union has gone from 234,000 to 381,000 million euros. This increase has been possible thanks to the fact that the EU itself has made its debt rules more flexible in terms of defense.
In the specific comparison from 2024 to 2025the joint defense spending of EU countries has increased from 343,000 to 381,000 million euros in just one year, which represents a 11% increase.
However, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Studies Institute, the arms imports from the US by the European NATO countries They currently stand at 64%. Therefore, the large growth in defense spending It has not meant that Europe stops depending militarily on the US.
