BRUSSELS -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that its European members and Canada have ramped up defence spending to record levels, as he warned that former U.S. president Donald Trump was undermining their security by calling into question the U.S. commitment to its allies.
Stoltenberg said U.S. partners in NATO have spent US$600 billion more on their military budgets since 2014 when Russiaâs annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted them all to reverse the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War ended.
âLast year we saw an unprecedented rise of 11 per cent across European allies and Canada,â Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of the organizationâs defence ministers in Brussels.
In 2014, NATO leaders committed to move toward spending two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence within a decade. It has mostly been slow going, but Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine two years ago focused minds. The two-per-cent figure is now considered a minimum requirement.
âThis year, I expect 18 allies to spend two per cent of the GDP on defence. That is another record number and a six-fold increase from 2014 when only three allies met the target,â Stoltenberg said.
On Saturday, Trump, the front-runner in the U.S. for the Republican Partyâs nomination this year, said he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO members that are âdelinquentâ in devoting two per cent of GDP to defence.
U.S. President Joe Biden branded Trumpâs remarks âdangerousâ and âun-American,â seizing on the former presidentâs comments as they fuel doubt among U.S. partners about its future dependability on the global stage.
Stoltenberg said those comments call into question the credibility of NATOâs collective security commitment â Article 5 of the organizationâs founding treaty, which says that an attack on any member country will be met with a response from all of them.
âThe whole idea of NATO is that an attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance and as long as we stand behind that message together, we prevent any military attack on any ally,â Stoltenberg said.
âAny suggestion that we are not standing up for each other, that we are not going to protect each other, that does undermine the security of all of us,â he said.
Trumpâs comments have not only sent a wave of unease through Europe but are also likely to be a major topic of conversation at the annual Munich Security Conference, starting later this week in the Bavarian city.
Both U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be present at the event that American officials hoped would concentrate more on immediate security concerns in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as challenges posed by China and the importance of multilateralism in collective defence.
The top U.S. diplomat for Europe, James OâBrien, said Tuesday that Blinken would be prepared to address questions about Americaâs commitment to NATO allies and issues related to Trumpâs comments. But he also sought to downplay European concerns, noting that NATO has been a cornerstone of European security for more than seven decades.
OâBrien told reporters that U.S. administrations from the Democratic and Republican parties "have regarded NATO as the bedrock of our security, certainly in Europe but increasingly a global partner.â
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has assailed Trumpâs comments without mentioning the former president by name. He posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, saying that âany relativization of NATOâs support guarantee is irresponsible and dangerous, and is in the interest of Russia aloneâ and that âno one can play, or âdeal,â with Europeâs security.â
Scholz's spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that while âsuch comments are dangerous,â it is also âimportant to stressâ they "have no influence on pressing NATO action.â
Lee reported from Munich, Germany. Associated Press Writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.