Authors are Andrew Gray and Sabine Siebold
BRUSSELS – NATO chief Mark Rutte on Wednesday sharply criticized arms companies in the U.S.-led alliance, saying they were producing too little, charging too much and delivering too slowly as NATO sought to bolster Ukraine and bolster its defenses against Russia.
As NATO countries brace for renewed pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump to increase their defense spending, Rutte also said the current target of 2% of economic output would not be enough to deter future attacks.
Rutte did not say whether he thought the new target should be 3%, as Trump insisted. But he said NATO would not only have to spend more on defense but also get better value.
“We don’t produce enough, at too high prices and deliveries are too slow, so the defense industry has to make more changes, put in more production lines,” said Rutte, the NATO secretary general and former Dutch prime minister.
“We cannot end up in a situation where we pay more for the same thing and witness large commissions for shareholders,” he told reporters after a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
Rutte said some NATO countries are turning to South Korean arms firms because “our own defense companies are not producing at the pace we need.”
Countries in the transatlantic military alliance have significantly increased defense spending in recent years, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
NATO estimates that 23 of its 32 members will meet their target of spending 2% of GDP on defense this year – just three countries that met the target set in 2014.
“I strongly believe – and I know many other allies also strongly believe – that 2% is simply not enough. In the long term, it is simply not enough, we want to keep deterrence at the level it is now,” Rutte said.
“Now it’s fine and now we can defend ourselves and nobody should try to attack us. But I want it to remain the same in four or five years,” he added.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray and Sabine Siebold; Editing by Gareth Jones)