BRUSSELS — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said (NATO) on Thursday all its members were finally set this year to hit the group’s previous defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) as they gear up for a far more ambitious goal.

NATO members to reach 2% defense spending goal this year

The 32-nation military alliance agreed at a June summit in The Hague, western Netherlands, to massively hike defense spending over the next decade under pressure from United States President Donald Trump.

The mercurial Republican leader rammed through a commitment from allies to cough up 5 percent of their GDPs on security-related spending, in a move seen as key to keeping him engaged with NATO.

That headline figure breaks down as 3.5 percent on core defense spending and 1.5 percent on a looser range of areas such as infrastructure and cybersecurity.

The new target replaces the alliance’s former military spending goal of 2 percent that was first set back in 2014.

NATO members to reach 2% defense spending goal this year

In a statement, NATO said all allies were now expected to reach that goal in 2025 and that overall defense spending across the alliance would top .5 trillion for the year.

That comes after a group of stragglers — including Spain, Belgium and Italy — hastily announced plans to reach 2 percent ahead of The Hague gathering.

The struggle to reach that figure highlights how difficult it will be for NATO countries in Europe to achieve Trump’s far higher new target set this year.

But officials insist that European countries must make good on their pledge if they are to have the capabilities needed to ward off Russia., This news data comes from:http://www.771bg.com

Numerous Western militaries and intelligence services have warned that Moscow could be ready to attack a NATO member-country within three to five years if the war in Ukraine ends.

Washington — which has underpinned European security since World War II — meanwhile insists it wants to shift more of the responsibility for the continent’s defenses onto European countries.

The Pentagon is currently conducting a review of its worldwide deployments and has warned it could look to scale back its footstep in Europe to focus more on China.

While some European countries have lagged behind on defense spending, NATO members close to Russia, such as Poland and the Baltic States, are already set to reach 5 percent of their GDP in the next few years.

Poland was projected to be the highest-spen­ding NATO member in 2025 at 4.48 percent.

The US currently spends 3.22 percent of its GDP on defense, but makes up the lion’s share of the alliance’s total expenditure in dollar terms.