There was a very tense atmosphere at the NATO 2024 Summit in July.
While President Joe Biden, then still running for president, praised the alliance's continued unity in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the shadow of his predecessor loomed large.
An anonymous Eastern European diplomat told the BBC that Donald Trump “influences every conversation here”.
President Trump's possible second term in the White House has sparked speculation about the United States' future role within NATO, an alliance he has long skeptical of and has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from.
That is unlikely, but Europe could still face an “America First” policy if Trump is re-elected in November, and he would likely demand that European countries significantly increase their spending on NATO.
Dan Caldwell, a policy adviser at the Defense Priorities Foundation, told Business Insider that “Europe needs to wake up to the fact that no matter who the next US president is, there are limits to US power.”
Caldwell said the U.S.'s ability to station troops in Europe and supply weapons to Ukraine “is not sustainable indefinitely” due to the national debt, inflation, a constrained industrial base and difficulties in recruiting troops.
Caldwell said he was not convinced President Trump would withdraw from NATO, but the US could use incentives to encourage European countries to strengthen their military capabilities.
“The best way to do that is to withdraw troops from Europe and make it clear that we are reducing our military presence there,” he said, adding that he didn't think there was anything wrong with the United States promoting greater strategic independence for Europe.
“Europeans are talking a lot about building a Trump-proof defense posture,” Caldwell said. “In reality, they need to build a US-proof defense posture in the sense that they can no longer continue to give Ukraine a blank check and expect them to keep their backyard safe, no matter who the US president is.”
European countries have already begun increasing their military spending.
Defence statistics released in February showed that defence spending across NATO's European member states and Canada would rise by 11 per cent in 2023, a figure NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described as an “unprecedented increase”.
“In 2024, European NATO member states will invest a combined $380 billion in defense, which for the first time represents 2 percent of the member states' combined GDP,” Stoltenberg said.
“We are really making progress. Our European allies are increasing their spending. But some of our allies still have a long way to go, because we agreed at the Vilnius summit that all allies should invest 2 percent, and 2 percent is the minimum,” he added.
Countries bordering Russia, such as Finland and the Baltic states, are especially encouraged to increase their defense spending.
“In Latvia and in neighboring countries, we are doing everything we can,” former Latvian Prime Minister Kristjanis Karins said in March. “We are investing in our country's defense, budgeted 2.4 percent this year. We expect it to reach 3 percent this year and even more in future.”
