24 June 2025, 13:00 | Updated: 24 June 2025, 15:00

By Jeremy Hunt

NATO countries are currently gathering in The Hague for this year’s summit. With the re-election of President Donald Trump, the alliance faces a potential moment of peril. But it has turned into an opportunity to show the world that NATO means business. NATO countries have already agreed on a new 5% of GDP target, consisting of both core defence spending and security-related infrastructure investment. As Europe’s pre-eminent military power, I hope the UK shows leadership by reaching the new 5% target by the end of the decade instead of the agreed 2035.

In the months leading to the NATO summit, there was considerable tension. It was no secret that Trump and European NATO countries didn’t always see eye to eye: Trump has long believed that Europe does not contribute enough to its own defence. The current US administration is more interested in the South China Sea and the Middle East and thinks that European security should be paid for by Europeans. In 2018, I was at the table when Trump nearly pulled the US out of NATO completely – thankfully, his advisers talked him out of it.

But Trump has a point. At the time, the US accounted for two thirds of total NATO defence expenditure. Shockingly, in 2018, only six member states –........

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