Commission: EU to increase defence spending to avoid trade war with Donald Trump

Her senior official, Stefan Sezurne, warned Donald Trump today (20.1.2025) a few hours before his inauguration, that Europe cannot achieve their goals for if there is a trade war. In particular, the head of the Commission industry, Stefan Sezurne, said he agrees that Europe must invest more in its defence spending, but it will be impossible if Trump starts a trade war with Europe, according to a Politico report. CORVERSE Since his first term in the White House, Trump has been attacking European governments for the money invested in defence, arguing that they are based on NATO under the American security umbrella and even suggesting that the US could leave the transatlantic military alliance. “We cannot do this with a trade war at our doorstep and national budgets everywhere are unable to increase defence budgets to more than 3%,” Sezurne said about increasing military spending during an interview with France Inter. NATO currently requires its members to spend 2% of GDP on defence, but this percentage is likely to increase at the summit of the alliance in The Hague in June. Secretary General Mark Rute said last week that the new percentage would likely be over 3%. If you missed it 11:33 Monday 20.01 09:24 Monday 20.01 09:57 Monday 20.01 10:29 Monday 20.01 In recent days, Trump has even advertised that NATO allies spend a 5% percentage of gross domestic product on defence – a huge increase in relation to the current 2% target.