NATO SUMMIT 2025

Written by Michel Thervil

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte Photo by Reuters/Yves Herman

[NATO summit 2025] The start of this year's annual NATO summit will be held in the Netherlands (Hauge) today and tomorrow as the leaders of all 32 NATO member countries are set to attend. Countries such as the United States,  Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Norway, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Denmark, and Sweden are just some of the 32 countries that will be in attendance for this year's NATO summit. From the east; Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea will also be in attendance.  Although current global issues of the day such as the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Iran will be heavily discussed during the two-day summit, the actions concerning American President Donald Trump reciprocal trade tariffs are expected to be discussed as well.

Russia and neighboring country Belarus will not be in attendance for the 2025 NATO summit. For many geopolitical analysts and commentators, Russia should be provided the opportunity to attend this year's NATO summit as they are both a world power and a nuclear power. While there are some NATO member countries that support Ukraine becoming a NATO member, the vast majority of  NATO member countries do not. The reason for this is because of the exceptionally high volatile risk Ukraine membership would cost NATO member countries. In short, Ukraine should not be a part of NATO because its membership would inflame Russia.

This year's NATO summit will also talk about how much NATO members should be spending on military defense and the increasing of all the member nations defense spending. Currently the agreed upon going rate all NATO member countries must spend on defense is capped at 2% of each country’s national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, the Trump Administration wants to not only raise that number to 5%, but it wants all NATO member countries to start paying their fair share. Currently only 22 of the 35 members are meeting the agreed number for defense spending last year, while Nato member countries such as Belgium, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Croatia, Luxembourg and Canada did not.

Some NATO member countries have pushed back against President Trump's notion that defense spending should be increased on the grounds that some countries may not have the economic budget to increase their military spending to meet the newly proposed rate of 5%. President Trump has previously stated to the Press that if there are NATO members that are not meeting their fair share of agreed upon military defense spending then they should not be allowed to refuse in article 5 protection. Article 5 protection is a clause among NATO members that states if one NATO nation is attacked then all other NATO nations should come to that nation's defense.

President Trump has also previously threatened to pull the United States out of NATO, which according to some geopolitical speculators will most likely never happen. However, the threat was made by President Trump and with that, NATO member countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France are being talked on how and what they could restructure themselves to operate within the NATO framework with the United States possibly no longer being a part of it. Will the United States pull out of NATO, and will NATO have the ability to create solutions to end the wars around the world? Many are skeptical as many are calling NATO an antiquated institution that has no real relevance in today's multipolar world.