WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed that NATO consider expelling Spain from the alliance over its failure to meet new defense spending targets agreed upon earlier this year.
During a meeting with Finnish President Alexander Stub at the White House, Trump said that Spain’s refusal to commit to spending 5% of its GDP on defense was unacceptable and undermined the strength of the Western alliance.
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“You people are gonna have to start speaking to Spain,” Trump told reporters. “You have to call them and find why are they a laggard. They have no excuse not to do this, but that’s alright. Maybe you should throw ’em out of NATO frankly.”
The comments follow Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s remarks in June, when he rejected the 5% defense spending goal, calling it “incompatible with our welfare state and our world vision.”
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Spain, which joined NATO in 1982, currently spends around 1.3% of its GDP on defense, well below the previous 2% target — let alone the new 5% benchmark pushed by Trump.
Trump has long criticized NATO members for not contributing enough to their own defense, arguing that the United States shoulders a disproportionate share of the alliance’s costs.
The remarks come as NATO continues to play a crucial role in deterring Russian aggression following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.