In a sharp escalation of his long-standing criticism of European defense spending, US President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over Rome’s failure to meet NATO’s minimum military expenditure targets. Speaking at a joint press conference in Washington on April 17, Trump dismissed NATO’s widely accepted 2% GDP benchmark for defense spending as outdated and inadequate, reiterating his call for European allies to contribute far more toward their own security.

Meloni, attempting to project progress ahead of the upcoming NATO summit, announced that Italy intends to reach the alliance’s 2% target. “Italy is going to the next summit of NATO, announcing that it will raise [defense spending] to 2%, and that’s also progressed,” she said. But before she could finish, Trump interjected with a terse, “It will go up,” before bluntly declaring that even the 2% goal was “never enough.”

Trump has never been subtle about his dissatisfaction with Europe’s defense contributions. As early as his first term, he had warned NATO members about the risk of American disengagement if they did not increase military spending. In January, he made headlines again by demanding that NATO allies allocate at least 5% of GDP toward defense-a figure more than double the alliance’s official guideline.

This demand, seen by many European leaders as unrealistic and destabilizing, has only deepened transatlantic tensions. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto responded to the pressure in no uncertain terms, telling La Stampa newspaper that it is “unthinkable” for European nations to dismantle their welfare........

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