President Donald Trump has labelled the United States’ financial relationship with NATO “ridiculous” and “one sided”, publishing comparative defence expenditure figures on his Truth Social platform less than a week before allied leaders convene in Ankara. The posts, which included a chart showing US spending at $999 billion against much lower figures for the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Poland, asserted that Washington “spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit”. According to NATO’s own 2025 estimates, the US defence outlay stands at $980 billion, while the alliance’s European members and Canada have collectively increased spending by 19.6 per cent year on year.

Viewed from European capitals, the latest salvo reopens a long-running dispute over burden-sharing that has been sharpened by the war in Iran. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz responded on Friday by stating that Berlin “has no reason to shy away from anyone”, noting that Germany will double its defence budget within four years and expects to meet the alliance’s upgraded spending target of 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2029, well ahead of the 2035 deadline agreed at last year’s Hague summit. Merz, speaking alongside Baltic leaders, framed the increase as the largest effort Germany has ever made to strengthen its defence capabilities and emphasised that Europe’s largest economy bears a responsibility within the Union.

Trump’s criticism explicitly linked the spending imbalance to what he described as a lack of reciprocity during the Iran conflict. “They were not there for us!!!” he wrote, a reference, according to European and US analysts, to the refusal of several allies to permit the use of joint bases for offensive operations against Iran. A mid-April post cited by US media quoted Trump dismissing NATO as a “Paper Tiger” after the alliance offered assistance only once the Strait of Hormuz situation had stabilised. The restrictions, which US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called “shameless”, prompted a still-ongoing Pentagon review of America’s force posture in Europe, a process that could last up to six months and that, according to the Wall Street Journal, was scaled back from an initial plan to announce immediate troop cuts after intervention by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited the White House last month with printed charts illustrating allied spending increases since 2017, but the outreach did not prevent the president’s latest criticism. The alliance’s 32 members will gather in the Turkish capital on 7-8 July, where the formal agenda is expected to address the implementation of the 5 per cent of GDP defence spending pledge by 2035, a target Trump has already questioned as insufficiently binding. The summit takes place against a backdrop of unresolved friction over base access, the economic fallout of the Iran war, and Trump’s earlier threats to withdraw from the treaty, a step that would require congressional approval. No formal proposal to alter the US commitment is on the table, but the Pentagon review and the president’s rhetoric ensure that the distribution of defence burdens will dominate the Ankara discussions.