The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will hold a foreign ministers' meeting on Dec. 3-4 in Brussels, Belgium, with foreign ministers from 32 member countries. According to NATO, four Indo-Pacific partners (IP4), including South Korea, have also been invited.
This meeting will take place as U.S. President Donald Trump pressures NATO to increase defense expenditure. Consequently, the main agenda for the foreign ministers' meeting is expected to be raising the target for defense expenditure. Earlier, Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense, visited the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, to attend the NATO Defense Ministers' meeting last month and noted, "While NATO countries' defense expenditures have recently approached 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Trump believes it should be raised to 5%, and I agree."
According to a report released in February by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), global defense expenditures last year increased by 7.4% compared to the previous year, reaching approximately $2.46 trillion (about 3,560 trillion won), setting a record high.
However, the percentage of each country's defense expenditure relative to GDP was only 1.9% on average. The IISS pointed out that Trump's demand for NATO members to increase this to "5% of GDP" is not feasible.
NATO established a guideline in 2014, the year Russia forcibly annexed Crimea, stating that each country should spend 2% of GDP on defense. At the 2023 summit, this standard was revised to "a minimum of 2%." As of last year, only 23 out of 32 countries exceeded 2%. Poland had the highest rate, spending 4.12% of its GDP, while the U.S. spent 3.38%. The Trump administration holds that all member countries must meet the 2% criteria and raise the guidelines before the summit in June.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz stated last month, "We need 100% (with all member countries spending at least 2% of GDP on defense) by the NATO summit in June," and added, "Then let's talk about spending over 5% of GDP, as Trump mentioned."
Meanwhile, it appears that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will attend the meeting. Minister Rubio is expected to reaffirm Trump's intentions to increase defense expenditure during this conference.