The Latest: NATO leaders agree on spending hike, vow to defend each other

NATO leaders agreed on Wednesday on a massive hike in defense spending after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, and expressed their “ironclad commitment” to come to each other’s aid if attacked. The 32 leaders endorsed a final summit statement saying: “Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense- and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”

Here is the latest:

“You’re very good at icebreakers,” Trump told a reporter from Finland. The ships can help bolster U.S. defenses in the Arctic.

Trump said he’s gone to Finnish President Alexander Stubb seeking to buy a “fairly used icebreaker, ” and offered “about one third of what he asked for.”

“But we’re negotiating,” Trump said. “We need icebreakers in the U.S. And, if we can get some inexpensively, I’d like to do that.”

He said Finland is the “king of icebreakers” and suggested the U.S. might be willing to buy as many as 15 of them, including the used icebreaker that Trump said might be immediately available.

“We’re trying to make a good deal,” Trump said.

Trump’s press conference has wrapped with a question about a comment by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who suggested on Wednesday that Trump was “Daddy” to the alliance.

Asked if he considers NATO allies his children, Trump chuckled but didn’t offer a direct answer.

“No, he likes me. I think he likes me,” Trump said of Rutte.

The president heaped praise during his press conference on most NATO members for agreeing to increase their defense spending.

The reporter who asked about the Patriot missile systems said her husband was a Ukrainian soldier. Trump, who laid into the U.S. media throughout his news conference, gave her praise.

“That’s a very good question,” Trump said. “And I wish you a lot of luck. I mean, I can see it’s very upsetting to you. So say hello to your husband.”

During the press conference, Trump had an exchange with a Ukrainian reporter, leaving open the possibility of sending Kyiv more US-made Patriot air defense missile systems.

“We’re going to see if we can make some available. Yeah, they’re very hard to get. We need them too. We’re supplying them to Israel, and, they’re very effective, 100% effective. Hard to believe how effective. They do want that more than any other thing.”

The U.S. has routinely pressed for allies to provide air defense systems to Ukraine, but many are reluctant to give up the high-tech systems – particularly countries in eastern Europe that also feel threatened by Russia.

The U.S. also is wary of giving too many away, since they are used all over the world to protect U.S. forces and allies. The systems cost approximately $4 million per missile, and the launchers cost about $10 million each, analysts say.

Trump, departing from the NATO focus of his post-summit news conference, says he has candidates in mind to replace the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, though he offered his usual insults against Jerome Powell rather than providing more details.

The president has spent months pressuring the Fed chair to lower U.S. interest rates. He said Wednesday that Powell is “an average mentally person” and has “low IQ for what he does.”

“I think he’s a very stupid person, actually,” Trump said.

Trump briefly ceded the stage to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a question about the impact of U.S. strikes on Iran.

“There’s a reason the president calls out the fake news for what it is,” Hegseth said, accusing media outlets of using a leaked intelligence assessment to politically damage Trump.

“They want to spin it to try to make him look bad,” Hegseth said.

Trump said he doesn’t know what “the problem” with Spain, calling the country’s position unfair to other members of the NATO alliance.

“They want a little bit of a free ride, but they’ll have to pay it back to us on trade,” he said, making up for it through higher tariffs.

But Spain belongs to the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of all 27 member countries. They are not meant to negotiate trade deals individually.

Asked about that, Trump said, “I’m going to negotiate directly with Spain. I’m going to do it myself.”

Most NATO member countries agreed Wednesday to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP. Spain claimed an exception and said it would increase spending to 2%.

Pedro Sánchez said Spain will meet the capability targets NATO members agreed upon at Wednesday’s summit, and continue being a key part of Europe’s security apparatus at its southern border as well as the eastern flank with Russia.

And Sanchez called his country’s plan to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense “sufficient and realistic.”

Two days before the summit, Sánchez announced that Spain had secured an opt-out from the 5% of GDP spending target that NATO allies agreed to at The Hague.

The move threatened the unity of the military alliance as leaders prepared to meet with Trump, who has pushed Europe to spend more on its defense and rebuked Spain for its low spending.

“In today’s summit, NATO wins and Spain wins something very important for our society, which is security and the welfare state,” Sánchez said.

“He’d like to get out of this thing. It’s a mess for him,” Trump said of the Russian president. “He called the other day, and he said, ‘Can I help you with Iran?’ I said ‘no, you can help me with Russia.'”

The president said he came to the NATO summit as a political chore, but is leaving convinced that the assembled leaders love the alliance, their own countries and, mostly importantly, the United States.

“I came here because it was something I was supposed to be doing. But I left here a little bit different,” Trump said.

He called NATO leaders a “nice group of people” and said “almost every one of them said ‘thank God for the United States.'”

Trump praised most member countries for agreeing to increase defense spending, adding: “They need the United States and without the United States it’s not going to be the same.”

Trump characterized the gesture as an indication that the U.S. might be willing to let bygone be bygones with Iran.

Asked if doing so could reduce economic pressure on Iran at a delicate time, Trump responded: “They’re going to need money to put that country back into shape. We want to see that happen.”

He harkened back to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, before the start of his political career, and said, “I used to say with Iraq, ‘Keep the oil.’ I could say it here too.'”

The statement was surprising given Trump’s harsh rhetoric against Iran recently, including his insistence that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.

“I’ll tell you what, we’re going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said.

It was a surprise disclosure about the possibility of restarting dialogue between Tehran and Washington.

“The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done,” he said.

“I don’t care if I have an agreement or not” because “we destroyed the nuclear,” deflating Iran’s atomic ambitions.

“They’re not going to be doing it anyway,” Trump said. “They’ve had it.”

In comments at the press conference, Trump said he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top U.S. officials felt like their work during the conflict in Iran made them warriors.

Referring to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump said, “Should we say secretary of war?”

The president noted that the Cabinet position was originally known as the Secretary of War. “Maybe, for a few weeks, we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors,” he said, while acknowledging that the original name might not be politically correct.

Trump said the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities brought the conflict to a close. He’s been calling it the “12 day war,” suggesting a definitive end to the conflict.

“I think they’re very much finished,” he said of Israel and Iran. “They’re both tired, exhausted.”

Trump says nearly all military personnel was moved off a U.S. military base before Iran targeted it with multiple missile strikes earlier this week. No casualties had previously been reported during Iran’s Monday attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Trump said Wednesday during his post-NATO summit press conference that “everyone was emptied off the base” except “the gunners.”

Iran targeted the Al Udeid base in retaliation for the U.S. bombing three of its nuclear facilities last weekend.

The president used his NATO press conference to press his claims that he had delivered a devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear program. It was a lengthy digression from the summit’s focus on European security.

“The site has been demolished,” he said.

“We had these brave patriots, these incredible fliers,” Trump said about U.S. pilots who led the attack with U.S. stealth bombers. “The shots were hit perfectly.”

Getting most NATO members to agree to increase their defense spending relative to GDP is something Trump has sought since 2017, feeling that the U.S. was shouldering too much of the burden.

Trump hailed the alliance’s vote on Wednesday to have most members boost that spending to 5%, with the key exception of Spain. He said the increase will add more than $1 trillion per year to “our common defense.”

The U.S. president said the vote will be known as “the Hague defense commitment” and as a “monument really to victory.”

“This is a big win for Europe and, actually, for Western civilization,” Trump said.

“Europe stepping up to take more responsibility for security will help prevent future disasters like the horrible situation with Russia and Ukraine,” Trump told reporters at his summit-ending news conference. “And hopefully we’re going to get that solved.”

Trump’s press conference after the NATO summit has begun.

The president used his opening remarks to praise the “massive precision strike on Iran” that he ordered, and again declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” despite early U.S. intelligence assessments questioning that.

“We call it the 12-day war” Trump said of the conflict between Iran and Israel, and he said the U.S. considers the hostilities concluded.

“We covered all the truly important issues,” Zelenskyy posted on social media following the leaders’ talks. “I thank Mr. President, I thank the United States. We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace. We spoke about how to protect our people. We appreciate the attention and the readiness to help bring peace closer.”

It was the first face-to-face talks between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders since April, when they huddled at St. Peter’s Basilica during Pope Francis’ funeral.

The French President appeared annoyed at repeated questions about Trump’s views at the NATO summit.

“I’m not the President of the United States of America,” Macron told reporters. “Ask him the question.”

Macron’s unusual irritation notably comes after Trump said whether he’ll commit to NATO mutual defense guarantee “depends on your definition.”

“It’s very simple, my job is not to interpret his comments,” Macron said. “What I’m saying is that this solidarity (between allies) does exist, it’s in our texts.”

Also asked whether he’s worried that Europe’s security relies on decisions from the U.S. president, Macron said: “That’s not the case. I’m telling it to you, for France, which has a full, well-equipped army with the (nuclear) dissuasion, that’s not the case. We don’t rely on others.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that while meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit he “encouraged” the U.S. president to get behind a sanctions bill in the U.S. Senate, and that it seems that Trump “is considering intensively what he can do.’

Merz noted that European Union leaders plan to agree on more sanctions of their own at a summit Thursday. But he said that “this alone will not be enough; we also need stronger participation by the United States of America in such sanctions.”

The Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders chatted with the U.S. president on the sidelines of the NATO summit, where world leaders had just agreed on a massive hike in defense spending after pressure from Trump. Like Trump, Wilders has similar anti-immigration, pro-Israel policies and a love for fiery rhetoric and frequent social media use.

In a post on X, Wilders thanked Trump for the “excellent meeting.” Wilders says the two talked about the need for tougher immigration rules.

Wilders took home a big win in the last Dutch election. But he pulled the plug last month on the four-party coalition formed in the wake of the 2023 vote following a dispute over migration after governing for just 11 months.

Despite his anti-Islam Party for Freedom taking the largest share of seats in parliament, Wilders was too unpalatable even for his coalition partners to helm the government. The top job went to civil servant Dick Schoof instead.

During a Republican fundraiser in Lima, Ohio, on Tuesday night, the vice president flipped his middle finger toward the crowd as he jokingly commiserated about the difficulties of being a modern political candidate. He said making the vulgar gesture is common in the nation’s capital.

“All the pink-haired people throw up this sign,” he said, to laughter. “And I think that means ‘We’re Number One,’ right? I choose to take that as that symbol in Washington.”

Vance said he was kidding, but the joke happened to come on the same day that Trump used the f-word for real. Trump was describing his frustration with both Israel and Iran appearing to have broken the terms of a ceasefire.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer say NATO’s support for Ukraine is undimmed, despite there being only a brief mention of its war with Russia in the alliance’s brief summit communique.

“On the question of Ukraine, the position of NATO has not changed,” Starmer told reporters. “While we work to lower the temperature in the Middle East, we will not for a moment lose focus on Ukraine.”

He denied Ukraine had been sidelined. “In my discussions with leaders there’s been a real resolve that now is the time to push again to get Putin to the table for the unconditional ceasefire.”

Supporting NATO’s call for members to spend 5% of national income on defense and security, he said: “This is the moment to unite, for Europe to make fundamental shift in its posture and for NATO to meet this challenge head on.”

The French president confirmed he mentioned the issue while in the Netherlands to leaders including Trump.

Speaking to reporters after the NATO summit, Macron said the decision from European Allies to substantially increase their defense spendings should “obviously lead to trade peace.”

“We can’t as Allies say ‘we need to spend more, we’re going to spend more,’ and within NATO, fighting a trade war. That’s an aberration,” Macron said.

Asked whether Trump appeared to hear the message, “ask him the question,” Macron answered.

Trump was less than declarative on on his way to the summit when he was asked about his support for Article 5 of the NATO treaty. Asked Wednesday to clarify, Trump said he supports the essential NATO pledge, that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

“I stand with it, that’s why I’m here,” Trump said as he met with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof. “If I didn’t stand with it I wouldn’t be here.”

Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that whether he is committed to Article 5 “depends on your definition.” The comment rattled NATO members.

“There’s numerous definitions of Article 5. You know that, right?” Trump said on the plane. “But I’m committed to being their friends.” He also signaled that he would give a more precise definition of what Article 5 means to him once he was at the summit.

The White House, looking to support Trump’s contention that Iran’s nuclear program was devastated by U.S. airstrikes, distributed a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

“We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years,” the statement said.

A U.S. intelligence assessment, which leaked on Tuesday, said there was a delay of only a few months.

Trump said media outlets were “disgusting” for reporting on the assessment, describing them as “very unfair to the pilots, who risked their lives for our country.”

NATO leaders agreed on Wednesday on a massive hike in defense spending after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, and expressed their “ironclad commitment” to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

The 32 leaders endorsed a final summit statement saying: “Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense- and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”

Spain had already officially announced that it cannot meet the target, and others have voiced reservations, but the investment pledge includes a review of spending in 2029 to monitor progress and reassess the security threat posed by Russia.

The leaders also underlined their “ironclad commitment” to NATO’s collective security guarantee – “that an attack on one is an attack on all.” Ahead of the summit, Trump had again raised doubts over whether the United States would defend its allies.

Mobile networks are down across the Netherlands as the country hosts the summit of NATO leaders.

The problem lies with a system of provider Odido, as well as several of its subsidiaries. The company says that its customers are experiencing widespread outages.

Job Holzhauer, a spokesman for the Dutch National Cybersecurity Center, said the agency wasn’t involved and that the primary responsibility for investigating the outage lies with the provider.

He said the cybersecurity center would only get involved if the provider’s investigation confirms a cyberattack.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has opened the annual summit of the alliance’s leaders in his hometown of The Hague.

Rutte, a former longtime Dutch prime minister, opened the meeting of 32 allies at a conference center that has been enveloped in the biggest security operation ever mounted in the Netherlands.

Rutte said the meeting’s central aim is for leaders to endorse a plan to boost military spending to 5% of their gross domestic product by 2035 and more fairly spread the cost of collective defense.

“For too long, one ally, the United States, carried too much of the burden of that commitment and that changes today,” Rutte said.

Leaders who flew in from around Europe and North America are scheduled to talk behind closed doors for about two and a half hours before issuing a brief written statement.

The significant spending boost from the current target of 2% of GDP has been pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who sat next to Rutte at the circular meeting table. But it has faced pushback from Spain, which says it can’t afford the new target.

On the eve of the NATO summit, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that his commitment to Article 5 “depends on your definition.”

The comment raised questions about Washington’s commitment to defend its allies should they come under attack from outside.

Article 5 is the foundation stone on which the 32-member NATO alliance is built. It states that an armed attack against one or more of the members shall be considered an attack against all members.

It also states that if such an armed attack occurs, each member would take, individually and in concert with others, “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

“We’ll discuss the obvious,” Trump said. “We’ll discuss his difficulties.”

Trump added of Zelenskyy: “Nice guy.”

The two leaders were supposed to meet at the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month, but Trump departed for Washington early to deal with the Middle East conflict.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán doesn’t believe, as other European countries do, that Russia could carry out an attack on NATO territory by the end of the decade.

“I think Russia is not strong enough to represent a real threat to us. We are far stronger,” said Orbán, fielding questions from reporters, leaning back with his hands thrust into his pockets.

Orbán is considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says he’s confident NATO members will decide on a drastic increase in defense spending “not to do anyone a favor,” but because they are convinced that the threat level has changed.

Merz said as he arrived at the NATO summit that he believes the decision to raise the alliance’s spending target to a cumulative 5% of gross domestic product will be made “in great harmony.”

He said that allies agree that “the threat situation has changed, and the threat is Russia in particular.”

Merz added: “I want to say expressly that we are making the decisions we are making not to do anyone a favor, but we are making these decisions out of … our own conviction that NATO as a whole, and this regards the European part of NATO above all, must do more in the coming years to secure its own defense capability.”

President Donald Trump began his first – and only – full day at the NATO summit with a breakfast courtesy of the Dutch king and queen.

Trump had stayed overnight at the Huis Ten Bosch palace at the invitation of Dutch King Willem-Alexander.

Only a still photographer was allowed to witness the meal on behalf of the White House press corps.

“The day begins in the beautiful Netherlands,” Trump posted on his social media account later Wednesday morning. “The King and Queen are beautiful and spectacular people. Our breakfast meeting was great! Now it’s off to the very important NATO Meetings. The USA will be very well represented!”

Those are the words of Finland’s president about the 5% spending goal.

While Spain says it can’t commit to that increase, other countries closer to the borders of Russia and Ukraine say they can.

“This is a big win, I think, for both President Trump and I think it’s also a big win for Europe,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb told reporters. “We’re witnessing the birth of a new NATO, which means a more balanced NATO.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the U.K. will provide 350 air defense missiles to Ukraine, funded by 70 million pounds ($95 million) raised from the interest on seized Russian assets.

The announcement came as the U.K., along with other NATO members, pledges to increase spending on security to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035. The total includes 3.5% on defense and another 1.5% on broader security and resilience.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the U.K. will buy 12 U.S.-made F35 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons and join NATO’s shared airborne nuclear mission.

The government says it is “the biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation.”

The U.K. phased out air-dropped atomic weapons after the end of the Cold War, so all of its atomic weapons are submarine-based missiles.

The use of nuclear weapons by the U.K. as part of the mission would require the authorization of the alliance’s nuclear planning group as well as the U.S. president and British prime minister.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte welcomed the announcement, saying it was “yet another robust British contribution to NATO.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says he’s looking forward to what he describes as a “transformational” summit of NATO leaders as they seek to agree on a huge hike in defense spending.

U.S. President Donald Trump was arriving at the summit later Wednesday after raising questions a day earlier about his commitment to NATO’s cornerstone mutual defense guarantee.

Trump spent the night at a royal palace in The Hague as a guest of Dutch King Willem-Alexander.

Spurred by Trump’s demands that NATO allies share the burden of defense spending more fairly, leaders are set to pledge to spend 5% of their economic output on defense by 2035, although Spain has said it will not meet that target.

Trump insisted Tuesday that “there’s a problem with Spain. Spain is not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them, frankly.”