Johnson says he will press allies to spend more on defense during NATO summit
The speech marked Johnson’s first major foreign policy address since becoming speaker last year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to press all NATO members to reach their domestic military spending goals during a rare foreign policy address ahead of the alliance’s summit in Washington this week.
“Every NATO member needs to be spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. That’s the agreement, that’s the deal,” Johnson said at the Hudson Institute on Monday. “It’s no longer acceptable that not all NATO members have reached their current commitment.”
“As I meet with NATO delegations this week, I’m going to raise this very serious issue with each one of them,” Johnson added.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has long complained about Canada and European allies not meeting their defense spending targets. During his presidency, Trump once threatened to pull the U.S. out of the alliance over his burden-sharing concerns.
That has helped make the issue of NATO contributions a major discussion topic in the run-up to the summit. During a visit to Washington last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that a record 23 NATO countries reached the alliance’s 2 percent GDP target on defense spending.
Even as Johnson said he will highlight the need for fairer burden-sharing in conversations with NATO leaders and delegations, he said Republicans will remain committed to the alliance as long as Canada and European allies increase their defense spending.
“Republicans, of course, celebrate the peace and prosperity NATO has secured and will continue to stand by our partners as we prevent needless wars, but we also believe that NATO needs to be doing more,” Johnson said.
“We support it, we celebrate its accomplishments. But there needs to be a renewed sense of commitment, I would say, on the part of the member nations — and there’s others who aspire to be a part of it — but we’ve got to make sure that there’s an entrance fee to this,” he added.
The Biden administration has also pushed for increased defense spending from NATO allies, but Democrats have not conditioned continued support for the alliance on meeting those targets. Biden has highlighted that approach as a success, noting in his June meeting with Stoltenberg that the number of countries hitting the 2 percent GDP benchmark had doubled since he assumed office in 2021.
In particular, Johnson singled out Canada for not hitting the 2 percent GDP goal.
“When the grenades are close to your own backyard, it gives you a renewed sense of priority and commitment. By contrast, shamefully, Canada announced in the last few days or last couple of days, that they won’t be ponying up,” Johnson said.
“Talk about riding America’s coattails,” he added. “They have the safety and security of being on our border and not having to worry about that. I think that’s shameful.”
Ottawa has come under intense scrutiny from NATO allies for not reaching the alliance’s benchmarks for military spending. In May, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators slammed Canada for not hitting the 2 percent GDP benchmark in a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Shortly after Johnson concluded his speech at the Hudson Institute, Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair acknowledged that Ottawa needed to do a better job of hitting its NATO commitments.
“I have no intention of Canada being a free rider,” Blair said at Foreign Policy’s Security Forum.
“I’m in complete agreement with my allies that Canada must do more,” he added. “We have a very aggressive plan to move forward. I’m very confident that it’s going to bring us to that threshold, but I think it also has to be a credible plan, it has to be verifiable to our allies.”
While Johnson repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden’s foreign policy leadership as weak and accused him of inviting “aggression like nothing we’ve seen since World War II,” he only made a slight reference to the turmoil in the Democratic Party following Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month.
“Regardless of the drama surrounding our current commander-in-chief, the U.S. military is well equipped and ready to strike at any time,” he said. “And we will defend our interests.”