NATO’s latest official report, released on Thursday, revealed how much of their GDP each of the 32 members spent on defence in 2025. All members of the Western military alliance hit the target of 2% of GDP, but while some didn’t go over this benchmark, others spent more than double the set target.

The UK ranked roughly in the middle, spending 2.3% of GDP, falling behind the US and Germany, but coming ahead of Spain and Canada. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised the US, which spent 3.2%, for getting other allies to increase their spending after relying “for too long” on the country’s “military might”.

He said: “For too long, European allies and Canada were over-reliant on US military might. We did not take enough responsibility for our own security. But there has been a real shift in mindset.”

Despite this, the US actually saw a drop in spending, down 0.1% from 3.3% in 2024. They weren’t the only ones; Hungary’s defence spending dropped by a whopping 6%, and the Czech Republic’s fell by 0.3%.

On the other end of the spectrum, Luxembourg (2.1%), Belgium (2%), and Slovenia (2%) saw the biggest year-on-year spending increases.

Donald Trump has long been a critic of the low levels of defence spending of some NATO members, and in 2018 he went as far as suggesting the US may leave the alliance. Six years later, he suggested the US may not defenc countries under attack if they weren’t hitting their defence spending target.

Last autumn, Mr Trump floated the idea of expelling countries if they didn’t meet the spending targets.