Trump's NATO Warning Comes Back to Bite Ukraine

Speakers at a European security conference on Tuesday warned that Ukraine's allies are running out of ammunition to give to Kyiv in its war against Russia.

One thread of these discussions at the Warsaw Security Forum was the need for NATO members to increase defense spending, an argument Donald Trump made years ago about the military alliance.

Speaking at a NATO summit in 2017, then-President Trump criticized NATO countries for not devoting more money to their defense spending. NATO members agreed in 2014 to use 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, but at the time of Trump's remarks, only the United States and a few other NATO allies had met the goal.

The United Kingdom's Minister for Armed Forces James Heappey renewed the call for NATO to reach the 2 percent target while addressing the Warsaw Security Forum on Tuesday.

"If it's not the time—when there is a war in Europe—to spend 2 percent on defense, then when is?" Heappey said.

When reached for comment, a Trump spokesperson told Newsweek in an email: "President Trump is always right."

During his comments, Heappey maintained that NATO should continue its support for Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invading forces.

"We can't stop just because our stockpiles are looking a bit thin," he said. "We have to keep Ukraine in the fight tonight and tomorrow and the day after and the day after. And if we stop, that doesn't mean that Putin automatically stops."

However, he said that giving to Ukraine must come while also increasing NATO's stockpiles. The U.K. currently meets the 2 percent defense spending target, but Heappey noted many other countries haven't reached the goal.

"The elephant in the room is that not everyone in the alliance is yet spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense," he said, per the BBC. "That must be the floor for our defense spending, not the ceiling."

Newsweek reached out to NATO via email for comment.

Dr. Erwan Lagadec, an associate research professor of international affairs at George Washington University, told Newsweek that the number of NATO allies meeting the 2 percent goal "had increased to ten, with more 'working on it.'"

"NATO summarizes the resulting progress by stating that between 2014 and 2023, the allies in the aggregate have spent $350-400 billion more on defense than they would have based on 2014 trends," Lagadec said.

Heappey was not the only official at the Warsaw conference to address the toll the Ukraine war has had on NATO stockpiles. Chair of the NATO Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer urged the defense industry to "ramp up production in a much higher tempo" because Kyiv's allies are running low on ammunition.

"The bottom of the barrel is now visible," the official said.

Swedish Defense Minister Pol Jonson said at the forum that Europe is currently "digging pretty deep now into our pockets, into our stocks."

Lagadec, who has taught classes on NATO's strategic challenges and the Western responses to Vladimir Putin's foreign policy, told Newsweek in an email that "the real problem of vis-a-vis ammunition shortages is that few if any allies (even those spending above 2 percent) had foreseen/prepared for a long, 20th-century style attritional war opposing two half-reconstructed post-Soviet militaries."

"I doubt that the allies would have been in significantly better shape in terms of their ammunition stocks even if defense spending had been higher over the years, as the spending would have gone to other priorities," Lagadec added.

Along with the critical remarks he made at the 2017 summit, Trump has in the past said the United States might not defend a NATO member should it be attacked. There has also been concern about what would happen in Ukraine if Trump were to win the 2024 presidential election, given that he's publicly stated that the U.S. has been providing Kyiv with too much aid.

"We're giving away so much equipment, we don't have ammunition for ourselves right now," Trump said during a CNN town hall in May.

When asked about NATO's defense spending, Northwestern University political science professor William Reno told Newsweek that "Trump is right, but right in the same way that a broken clock is on time twice a day."

"The situation is more complex than a lack of will among feckless allies," he said. "It is hard to ramp up production."

Reno added that defense "contractors live in an unpredictable world" where the Biden Administration has to try to increase munitions "within a budget deal with House Republicans that limits defense spending."

"It's true that NATO—including the U.S.—has under-invested in production of munitions. It's hard to explain to voters why they should pay more taxes to produce something that ideally sits on a shelf," Reno said.