| ALL IN A WORD. The deal struck with Spain’s Sánchez relies on a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand to win over the lone holdout on a declaration raising NATO’s defence spending target to 5% of GDP by 2035. Sánchez’s last-minute opposition had threatened to blow up months of careful work aimed at giving Donald Trump what he wants. So, will the US president care about swapping a couple of words? He’s never been one for details, and now has much bigger things on his mind — such as war with Iran.
To win Sánchez over, NATO edited the draft statement to say that the “allies” – instead of “we” – commit to spending 5% on defence.
SEMANTICS? NOT ENTIRELY. As one insider explained to Firepower, that subtle change adds a bit of ambiguity about whether the pledge applies to everyone — giving Sánchez (and others) the wiggle room to spend far less without technically going back on their word. The pledge was already a bit squishy before the rewrite: spending deadlines are years away, and the harshest sanction is limited to naming and shaming. But for politicians looking to claim victory back home, maybe any deal – no matter how symbolic – will do.
Sánchez crowed on Sunday night that Spain won’t have to increase its defence budget at all. To achieve NATO capability targets, he said, they’ll spend exactly 2.1% of GDP on defence, “no more and no less.”
TARGETS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME. Trump, meanwhile, declared that the 5% rule should apply to everyone except Washington. “I don’t think we should, but I think they should,” Trump told reporters over the weekend. “We’ve been supporting NATO so long (...) so I don’t think we should, but I think the NATO countries should, absolutely.” Those comments will surely grate on other NATO leaders and raise questions about whether these new commitments are serious — or just for show. Still, it’s worth noting that the US already meets the new target’s 3.5% threshold for core military spending.
A BIT OF GDP FOR KYIV TOO. Ukraine has been largely sidelined ahead of the summit, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still hoping to bring something back from The Hague. The Ukrainian president suggested on X that “each ally allocate 0.25% of their GDP” next year to support Ukraine’s defence industry. He added that allies had contributed $43 billion this year. Unlike past NATO summits, this year’s gathering isn’t expected to produce a collective pledge of increased support for Ukraine, due to Trump’s unwillingness.
UKRAINE TO SELL DEFENCE TECH ABROAD. Zelenskyy also announced that Ukrainian military technology will be available for export by summer, with the goal of launching joint arms production outside Ukraine. Reuters reported that negotiations are already underway with Denmark, Norway, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania. Earlier this month, Defence Minister Umerov first raised the possibility of manufacturing abroad. Such deals could also bring much-needed revenue home.
FRANCE “will increasingly ask Kyiv to buy directly from our defence industries via the [G7 loans] channel,” France’s Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu told Le Parisien.
ANOTHER NATO ‘BRAIN DEATH’ MOMENT? Italy’s Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, declared that “NATO no longer has any reason to exist” in a speech on Friday, arguing that the alliance has lost relevance in a world no longer dominated by Europe and the United States. For most NATO leaders, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine revived the alliance’s purpose – after French President Emmanuel Macron infamously warned in 2019 that the world was witnessing the “brain death of NATO.” Like Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Crosetto is a member of the far-right Brothers of Italy party.
ANTI-NATO SUMMIT. Former Italian PM and Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte is organising an anti-NATO counter-summit in The Hague on 24 June, hosted at the Dutch parliament building with support from the Dutch Socialist Party, as Euractiv first reported. Other attendees include members of Spain’s left-wing political alliance Sumar, which is the junior coalition partner in Pedro Sánchez’s government. In a letter seen by Euractiv, Conte argues that “peace and dialogue remain the most valuable investment in security.”
THE NATO (SUMMIT) BILL. The Netherlands expects to spend €183.4 million to host this year’s summit – roughly the cost of two F-35 fighter jets, or apparently one group photo with Donald Trump (let’s hope he smiles). According to calculations by Dutch newspaper AD, that works out to €1 million a minute, making it the most expensive NATO summit ever. We’ll be watching to see how the Dutch count the cost under NATO’s new spending targets. | 