The fact 23 countries meet the target — which was set 10 years ago — makes it “more than twice as many as four years ago, and demonstrates that European allies and Canada are really stepping up and taking their share of the common responsibility to protect all of us in the NATO alliance.”
It’s also the first time that non-U.S. allies met the target on average, as NATO is keen to highlight that share of defense expenditure as proof to U.S. critics, especially from the Republican Party, who are calling for fairer burden-sharing between the two sides of the Atlantic.
Poland tops the chart at 4.12 percent, followed by Estonia (3.43 percent), the U.S. (3.38 percent), Latvia (3.15 percent) and Greece (3.08 percent).
Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain are among the lowest spenders.
