NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte presented his annual report on the alliance's activities at its headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, lauding a one-fifth real-terms increase in defense spending in Europe and Canada in 2025. 

"Between 2014 and 2025, NATO Europe and Canada have more than doubled their annual defense expenditure, with a real-term increase of 106%. In 2025 alone, NATO Allies in Europe and Canada invested a total of $574 billion (rougly €500 billion) in defense, a 20% increase in real terms compared to 2024," Rutte wrote in the foreword to the report. 

He said that all allies reported meeting the annual target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, with three saying they had met the new 3.5% objective set for 2035. 

"This shows that NATO Allies recognize our changed security environment, and the need to meet our collective obligations," Rutte said. 

US defense spending falls slightly, but still greater than rest of NATO combined

Some of the core defense spending statistics from the report follow here: 

• At $838 billion, US defense spending dipped slightly in 2025 compared to the previous year
• Nevertheless, it still made up well over 50% of NATO expenditure, with $574 billion contributed by European members (including Turkey) and Canada.
• The US share of overall NATO defense spending fell quite sharply, from 64% in 2024 to 59% in 2025
• Europe and Canada's overall defense spending rose by more than 19% in absolute terms for the second year in a row
• Several countries — Belgium, Canada, Albania, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, France and Montenegro — barely met the 2% defense spending goal, filing figures between 2.00% and 2.05% of GDP
• Top European spenders Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark and Norway all invested a higher share of GDP on defense than the US rate of 3.19%
• Germany's reported figure stood at 2.39% of GDP, roughly double its 2014 share
• Only three countries — Belgium, Albania and Estonia — fell short of the goal of spending at least 20% of their defense expenditure on new military equipment

Drive towards spending 5% of GDP on either defense or related issues by 2035

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, spoke repeatedly of the "historic" NATO summit in The Hague last June, calling it a "defining moment for our Alliance." 

At that summit, amid criticism from US President Donald Trump, the Alliance's other members pledged to spending 5% of GDP annually in defense by 2035 — 3.5% to "fund core defense" and another 1.5% for "defense- and security-related investments" like civil preparedness, innovation, critical infrastructure and strengthening defense industries.  

Rutte said this plan was "making NATO fairer and rebalancing the burden of our security for the better." 

He said he hoped NATO would "build on our achievements" at this year's summit in Ankara in July, saying there was "no room for complacency and no time to waste."

He warned how Russia "continued to test the Alliance," and remained "the most significant and direct threat to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area." In particular, Rutte cited the invasion of Ukraine, now entering its fifth year, which he said was backed by China, North Korea, Iran and Belarus.

"A strong transatlantic bond remains essential in an age of global uncertainty," Rutte wrote, amid Trump's dissatisfaction with NATO allies reticent to get involved in the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. "North America and Europe have always been stronger together in NATO and that is how we will continue to stay safe in a more dangerous world."

Edited by: Sean Sinico