NATO Agrees to 5 Percent Defense Spending Target

The 32 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to a higher defense spending target on June 24 during a summit in the Netherlands.

The gathered delegation of leaders, including United States President Donald Trump, agreed that each member state should spend 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, a significant increase from the 2 percent benchmark set during a 2014 summit in Wales.

Dangerous world: The 2 percent benchmark was set shortly after Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Yet over a decade later, nine members of nato still allocate less than 2 percent of their gdp to defense. These nations are reliant on the U.S. for their overall security.

A document on the nato website, called “Funding NATO,” states:

The combined wealth of the non-U.S. allies, measured in gdp, is almost equal to that of the United States. However, non-U.S. allies together spend less than half of what the United States spends on defense. This imbalance has been a constant, with variations, throughout the history of the alliance, and has grown more pronounced since the tragic events of 11 September 2001, after which the United States significantly increased its defense spending.

Unintended consequences: If all 32 members of nato were to keep their pledge and increase defense spending to 5 percent, then nato’s overall military budget would almost double. About 53 percent of this defense spending would be put out by the U.S., while 47 percent would be put out by the non-U.S. allies. In other words, the European Union’s military would be as powerful as the U.S. military.

Well over 100 Bible prophecies foretell a time when a revived Holy Roman Empire will conquer end-time Israel (the U.S. and Britain). The fact that nato has agreed that the EU should be equally powerful as the U.S. is a huge step toward creating the conditions for these prophecies to be fulfilled.

Learn more: Read “Ten Kings of the New Holy Roman Empire Rising Now,” by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.