The head of NATO has laid out figures pointing to a sharp increase in defense spending by European allies and Canada, and he gave much of the credit to the United States. According to remarks aired by FOX 26 Houston, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised US President Donald Trump for pushing allies to spend more, framing the rise as a major shift in transatlantic burden sharing.
At the heart of his case were the numbers. Rutte pointed to almost 140 billion dollars in extra defense spending in nominal terms by Europeans and Canadians, followed by a further increase of about 120 billion dollars this year. Taken together, he said, that amounts to more than 250 billion dollars in additional defense spending over two years.
Rutte was explicit about what he said was driving the change. He told Trump the surge was happening because of Russia rather than any other threat, tying the spending increases directly to the security situation on the continent. He also credited the US president for achieving something he said had eluded Washington since the Eisenhower era, getting Europeans to bring their defense planning into line with the United States.
The NATO chief also stressed the benefit flowing back to the American economy. He said that 195,000 jobs in the United States are supported by investment from European companies, presenting the increased spending not only as a security measure but as an economic gain for the US, with American workers among those benefiting from the closer defense relationship.
A large share of the money, he noted, is spent in the United States itself. Rutte said Europeans spend about half of their defense industry output in the US, and that last year they spent 54 billion dollars on American defense industry output, underlining how much of the European spending ends up flowing to US manufacturers.
Looking ahead, he pointed to a substantial pipeline of future orders. Rutte said there was an order backlog of 300 billion dollars, representing defense purchases by Europeans from the United States over the next couple of years that are already under order. The remarks underscored the scale of the spending commitments now tying European security to American industry.