I strongly believe that the NATO we had only three or four years ago going forward would not have been sustainable.
Mr. Secretary General, thank you so much for joining the conversation here in Ankara for the NATO summit in 2026. Can you believe it?
Absolutely. Good to see you again and thank you for having me.
I want to start with the stakes here because Mr. Secretary, this summit begins under extraordinary circumstances. NATO is asking allies to undertake the biggest increase in defense spending in history. Russia's war in Ukraine still rages on and now escalating. The conflict in the Middle East is still continuing and questions remain about America's long-term role in European security. Have you ever walked into a NATO summit where the stakes felt higher than they do this morning?
Well, I feel excited and I'm really excited to have this opportunity to have this interview because not enough people I think have already grasped that this is transformational. It is really fundamental what is going to happen today and tomorrow. And basically many people think, hey, why do we have to do all of this and spend the extra money?
Of course, Ukraine, most of us of course agree it has to be done, but this is transformational for only one reason, because I strongly believe that the NATO we had only three or four years ago going forward would not have been sustainable, overreliant on the United States, Europe not spending enough, not producing enough, both in the US and in Europe, and all of this is now changing rapidly and this is really great news. At the center of this is NATO all committing to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by...
This of course is a major priority for President Trump. You said that the goals of this summit are delivery and implementation of that commitment. You've talked a lot about countries needing a credible path to 5%. And I'm curious, what in your mind makes a plan credible? And by whose standard? Who is setting that standard? Is it you? Is it the allies? Is it President Trump?
Of course we do this collectively. Ukraine spending less, where the Europeans were not spending the same as the US was spending and therefore having this overreliance on the United States. This is all changing. A credible path means that you reach the 5% target in 2035, not let's say by just increasing your spending in 2034 and then doing everything in one year, but doing it in a credible way, like so many allies are already doing. Look at Germany, which will already reach the 3.5% in 2029 and brought a budget yesterday to parliament which will in one year increase defense spending in Germany by tens of billions.
We have people in headquarters who can assure you, having been prime minister of the Netherlands, I know that this team at NATO is not easy to deal with. They have all the numbers. They will immediately see through if allies would say, hey, this is defense spending, and NATO saying no, this is not. So I'm saying, but in the end, the specialists, the real experts in NATO headquarters.
Of course, so much of this has been driven by President Trump and US ambassador Matt Wier says Washington is now considering consequences for allies that don't have a credible path to 5%. Do you agree with that approach?
Well, of course, every ally can decide how they want to keep the others to account. So that's totally fine. But that's between allies individually. What I'm looking at is the overall numbers. And here you see the success story. The success story is that when you combine 2025 and 2026, Canadians and Europeans spending more than 250 billion dollars extra compared to 2024. This is amazing.
The carrot, do you think that the stick is necessary? Of some sort of consequence?
But when I'm looking at the numbers, I would say we have to do this because of Russia. We also have to do this because of equalizing European spending with the United States. This is President Trump basically achieving what since Eisenhower American presidents tried to achieve, which is to equalize the defense spending between the US and Europe. Trump is now achieving that.
So then that brings me to the next important question. What happens when he's out of office? How sustainable is this commitment?
This is sustainable because Trump is one big reason to do this, but not Trump individually, but the fact that you have to build a NATO which is sustainable and therefore is not overreliant on the US, has a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO where the Europeans and the Canadians are really stepping up, but also because there is this long-term threat which is Russia, which is Putin. He is spending now almost 55% of his state budget on defense, almost 75% of the tax intake in Russia is spent on defense. The whole of Russian industry, not only the defense industry but also the car industry, is now churning out for the defense effort. So it's there, and of course we have China which is also ramping up defense. But you know, not every ally is thrilled with this spending goal, and some because of politics, some because of their own fiscal situation. I mean, I'm thinking about the UK, France, Italy specifically.
The United Kingdom has now committed to spend an extra 20 billion dollars, 15 billion pounds extra on defense, and they also decided to have in the next spending review which is early next year, defense is priority number one, so as to ensure there is a credible path to the 3.5%. France has been consistently in the top three defense spenders in NATO, and then Italy. Italy was one of the four bigger allies together with Belgium, Canada and Spain who was not at 2%. Italy, Spain, Canada and Italy reached the 2% last year.
But President Trump keeps calling them out and Germany too. I mean, I know you've credited all of these allies, but the US is still not thrilled.
Well, when you look at Germany, I mean who cannot be thrilled? Germany will... There was a call between Friedrich Merz and the president, they no doubt discussed this, but I think President Trump, when he looks at the numbers, and this is what I discussed last week with him, 250 billion in two years means that you reach almost the max of what you can spend in two years extra because you have to recruit men and women in uniform, you have to make sure the defense industrial output is there.
President Trump is one big win. Trump is one big loss? No, there is... Look at President Trump in the G7, it was a big success that meeting. I had a very good visit with him last two weeks ago in the White House. So I have every confidence in this summit.
I want to talk about some of the real world threats that sort of heighten the stakes of these commitments and put these alliances to the test. Starting with Iran, how is NATO going to address Trump's anger with the alliance's lack of assistance during the Iran war?
Well, of course Iran is outside NATO territory. So this is individual allies working with the United States, and where NATO can be useful and helpful, we will be present. Iran first of all, agree it was crucial Trump degraded the nuclear capability of Iran. This was a longstanding position of NATO. When it comes to all the flights because of Epic Fury taking off from European air bases, up to 5000 sorties from Europe into Epic Fury, here was Europe again as one big platform of power projection for the United States delivery.
Friday, France leading a big coalition of countries announcing will move forward together with the UK to guarantee the freedom of navigation. I think that was a big announcement last Friday. But the president is not happy. So how are you addressing that? Are you making the same case to him?
Well, again, I think President Trump has a point that there are individual cases where he is rightly disappointed. But when you look at the bigger picture of what the Europeans are doing, it is massive. Massively, Europeans are delivering on the bilateral basing agreements the US has with all these countries. And this led to up to 5000 sorties from European bases. For example, Bucharest airport being closed off for some time for commercial planes because the US had to use it. This was Bucharest implementing the bilateral agreement with the United States. They didn't complain, but it is evidence that European nations have really been extremely helpful based on all these bilateral agreements to make Epic Fury possible.
Well, there are also a number of allies that actually don't like the idea that they're being commended for helping with a war that they feel they want no part of. They don't think it's a NATO problem. How do you deal with those relations?
NATO has this longstanding position that Iran should not have its hands on a nuclear capability. This is NATO, including the 30 European NATO allies. Plus that Iran should not get its hands on the long-range ballistic missile capability. So these two capabilities, President Trump through Epic Fury has severely degraded. I think this is massively good news for Israel, for the Middle East, for Europe, for the whole world.
In the face of rising medical and drug costs, your health plan is working to make healthcare more affordable. Negotiating lower prices from hospitals and drug makers. Protecting patients from healthcare fraud, helping people get the preventive care they need with no out-of-pocket costs.
Trump has said, I mean stepping back, so much of this is about the relationships and what he wants to see out of Europe. And he has recently said, there's the burden sharing part, the burden shifting piece, but there's also the loyalty piece, which as you know is huge for this president. And he says he just wants NATO's loyalty. Some allies bristle at the idea that they owe some sort of fealty to the United States. I'm curious, do you think that NATO members owe loyalty to the United States?
I'm not going to comment on everything everybody says, but when you look at the picture, the overwhelming picture here, again I do understand that the president has some disappointment in some individual cases when it comes to Epic. But again, when you look at Europe massively supporting, the US probably could not have done Epic Fury without using Europe as one big platform of power projection.
I'm not asking you to comment specifically on what different allies are saying, but the idea of loyalty to the United States. Do you think that's important with NATO?
Of course, it's loyalty to everyone, to everybody. This is how this alliance has been created. 32 nations being totally loyal to each other. That means that an attack on one is an attack on all. Article 5, the fact that we all agree that Russia is the long-term threat. Look at the declaration we agreed on in The Hague last year. We will come out with a new declaration on Wednesday. Of course, about confidence, very...
President Trump, you've been credited as sort of being the Trump whisperer on behalf of this alliance. You're shaking your head. Point is this...
I just like the man. I think what he is doing for NATO is great news because yes, there is a Russian threat, there is Ukraine, so we had to step up in Europe anyway, but he was what was necessary to bring this extra impetus to the debate to really get all these nations from the old 2% and now to agree to the 5%. As I said yesterday in the preconference, pressure, Canada and Europeans are now already at almost 4% when it comes to defense spending, so in one year on this trajectory to 5% in 2035, we reach the 4% in 2026.
