Trump has changed Australia’s defence spending. Just not in the way he thinks

April 17, 2026 — 5:00am

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Defence Minister Richard Marles may not want to admit it, but the Trump administration’s badgering of allies to spend more on the military has changed the way the Australian government is calculating defence spending.

But while the US president can take responsibility for the government fiddling with spending figures, he cannot claim credit for pressuring Australia to inject $53 billion more into defence over the next decade.

Two years ago, Marles stood at the National Press Club and proudly declared that Australia would spend “around 2.4 per cent” of gross domestic product on defence by 2033.

Speaking at the same venue on Thursday, Marles said the nation would now spend almost 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2033. Those figures may not sound wildly different, but, in the context of the entire economy, it is a giant discrepancy.

The reason for the difference is that the government has adopted the North American Treaty Organisation’s........

© Brisbane Times