Trump says NATO countries are 'taking advantage' and should contribute 5% of GDP

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that NATO member countries “were taking advantage” of the U.S. and should be paying more than double what they currently are required to pay for their military defense.

“They could all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%,” said Trump, during a press conference from his Florida beachside compound Mar-a-Lago, talking about member countries’ contribution as a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product or economic output.

In February, Trump caused an uproar when he said during a campaign event that he’d told a NATO leader that if a country had not paid their “bills” he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want."

Trump repeated the anecdote on Tuesday, this time identifying the leader as a “prime minister,” saying, “Well, they weren't paying their bills. I said, 'we're not gonna protect you. You're not paying the bills.'”

On Tuesday, Trump said he “took a lot of heat” in February for saying that the U.S. would not protect them if they were “delinquent.”

“I would've loved to have said ‘Yes, we'll protect you even if you don't pay,’” he said Tuesday. “But that's not the way life works.”

The U.S. contributes 3.4% of its GDP and about 16% of NATO's annual budget. Poland is in top place, contributing 4.1% of it's GDP, followed by Estonia and the U.S, both at 3.4%, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2014, NATO members recommitted to the 2% guideline in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region. But most countries, however, failed to meet that guideline. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many of the countries were more willing to pay for their own defense.

The transatlantic alliance reached a milestone in 2024 when all non-U.S. NATO allies spent the 2% target on average for the first time.  Twenty-three out of the 32 total member countries will meet or exceed the 2% target, including France and Germany, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The newly elected NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte signaled in a speech on Dec. 12 that he agreed with Trump.“By 2023, NATO Allies agreed to invest ‘at least’ 2%,” he said. “I can tell you,we are going to need a lot more than 2%. If we don’t spend more together now to prevent war, we will pay a much, much, much higher price later to fight it.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NATO countries should pay 5% of GDP for defense: Trump