U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed credit for pushing NATO allies to raise military spending and for rebuilding U.S. military strength, which he said deterred Russia and saved lives, according to Truth Social.
In the post, Trump wrote that many NATO countries were at the alliance’s 2% of GDP defence-spending guideline but “most weren’t paying their bills” until he intervened as president. He said the United States was “foolishly” paying for them, and claimed he “got them to 5% GDP,” adding that allies “pay, immediately.”
Trump also said Russia would have “ALL OF UKRAINE” without his involvement and claimed he “single-handedly ENDED 8 WARS,” without identifying the conflicts or offering details. He criticised Norway for not awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize, calling the decision “foolish,” while saying it did not diminish his contribution.
Trump warned that Russia and China would have “zero fear” of NATO without the United States and questioned whether the alliance would come to America’s aid in a crisis. He said the United States would continue to support NATO “even if they won’t be there for us,” and ended by repeating his campaign slogan.
NATO’s 2% benchmark is a guideline for national defence spending that allies agreed in 2014 to move toward over time, according to NATO. NATO separately funds shared budgets through a cost-share formula based largely on national income, according to NATO.
As stated at the 2025 Summit in The Hague, NATO announced allies’ commitment to spend at least 5% of their GDP every year starting 2035, of which at least 3.5% will be for core defence spending, and 1.5% for defence and security-related spending, according to NATO.
