Joe Biden’s Mostly True claim about growth of NATO countries hitting 2% of GDP on defense

During an address on the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance, President Joe Biden said that NATO allies have increased their defense spending. 

"In the year 2020 … the year I was elected president, only nine NATO allies were spending 2% of their defense — GDP on defense," Biden said. "This year, 23 will spend at least 2%. And some will spend more than that."

A White House spokesperson cited NATO’s most recent data, which supports Biden’s claim. 

In 2024, 23 of 32 NATO members will spend at least 2% of their annual gross domestic product to build up their defenses, June 2024 NATO data shows. That same report said nine allies met the defense spending goal in 2020.

Experts said NATO’s data supports Biden’s statement but cautioned against attributing member nations’ increased defense spending to any one cause — or president. 

The NATO-provided spending figures for 2023 and 2024 were estimates, not finalized numbers, the organization said. We contacted NATO for clarification and received no response before publication.

Typically, NATO data older than two years is final, but the previous and current year’s numbers are estimates, said Julie Garey, an associate teaching professor of political science at Northeastern University. 

Those figures are based on the information those countries provide — not all NATO members have the same fiscal year and not all of the countries have implemented their scheduled spending, experts said.

NATO asks members for defense spending information once a year and then publishes updates accordingly, "but not everything a state counts as ‘defense expenditures’ is included in NATO’s measure of spending," Garey said.

In 2014 — in response to instability in the Middle East and Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea — NATO leaders agreed to commit 2% of their national gross domestic product to defense spending. 

That agreement was a nonbinding goal that NATO countries planned to achieve "within a decade."

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The idea is that by spending at least 2% of a country’s GDP on defense, the allies will meet their own defense needs and be able to contribute to collective NATO action, Garey said. But there are no explicit consequences for a country that fails to meet NATO’s 2% of GDP defense spending goal. 

"I can never emphasize enough that this is money being spent on each state’s defense — it’s not going directly to the alliance," she said. "This is money that countries are spending on their own soldiers, equipment, and so forth, that they own and control and can use as they deem appropriate." 

Countries that haven’t met the target might face pressure from allies to do more, but she said the 2% goal isn’t meant to be a reward or punishment system.

Experts said there are too many factors to attribute the rising number of countries meeting the 2% benchmark to one cause. The uptick in NATO countries working to increase their defense spending predates both Biden and former President Donald Trump. 

The key factor driving NATO members’ increased defense spending in 2023 and 2024 is "a European sense of insecurity after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine," said Alexandra Chinchilla, assistant professor of international affairs at the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University. 

Countries such as Latvia have required 2% military spending by law, said Anessa Kimball, a political science professor at Laval University and co-director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network. Other countries have been "more creative in ‘what counts’ as defense spending," Kimball said. For example, Belgium counts railways as part of national defense. Greece counts spending on veterans’ pensions. 

Some NATO members are likely thinking "about what a Europe post-NATO might look like" and what each country might need to prepare if the U.S. left the alliance, Garey said. Trump, who is running for reelection in 2024, has repeatedly threatened to leave NATO. 

Biden said that in 2020, "only nine NATO allies were spending 2%" of their GDP on defense, and in 2024 "23 will spend at least 2%." 

June 2024 NATO data supports his claim. NATO’s 2023 and 2024 figures are considered estimates, because not all NATO members have the same fiscal year and not all of the countries have implemented their scheduled spending. The numbers are typically finalized within two years. It's also worth clarifying that countries count "defense spending" differently, with some classifying money spent on things such as railways and veterans' pensions. 

Experts warned against attributing member nations’ increased defense spending to any one cause or president, though multiple experts linked Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to the recent uptick in defense spending.

We rate this claim Mostly True. 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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