The 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allotted a budget of $1.3 trillion for defense purposes in December 2023. Around 68% of the funding has come from the U.S. while the other countries pool just 32% for the defense budget.
The U.S. remains the biggest spender of NATO shelling out $860 billion in 2024. That’s just close to the $1 trillion mark and could reach there in the upcoming budgets. The 31 other countries in the alliance have combinedly contributed $440 billion for defense purposes to safeguard their interests.
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In 2018, former US President Donald Trump demanded member countries to pay 2% of their GDP to NATO’s budget. However, the U.S. spent an additional 6% on the alliance budget while other countries raised it to less than 1%.
The second biggest country to spend on NATO is Germany. The European nation has allocated $68 billion for the alliance this year. The U.S. has spent more than 10 times Germany’s budget in the same year.
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A Breakdown of the U.S. $1.3 Trillion NATO Defense Budget
While the U.S. stands to be the biggest spender on NATO, other European countries are quickly catching up. The war in Russia and Ukraine has alerted several European nations to safeguard themselves from the growing conflicts. Therefore, an increase in spending by European countries since 2022 gained steam.
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Below is the list of the top 10 countries that spent on NATO’s defense budget in 2024.
- United States. – $860 billion
- Germany – $68.08 billion
- United Kingdom – $65.7 billion
- France – $56.6 billion
- Italy – $31.5 billion
- Poland – $29.1 billion
- Canada – $28.9 billion
- Spain – $19.1 billion
- Netherlands – $16.7 billion
- Turkey – $15.8 billion
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The remaining 22 countries have pooled another $150 billion to make up the overall $1.3 trillion budget. In conclusion, the U.S. is the top spender on NATO and is increasing its budget every year.
