Last year Donald Trump gave an interview to The Washington Post editorial board. He said: “NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe, but we’re spending a lot of money. Number one, I think the distribution of costs has to be changed.” Later he told the New York Times: “NATO is unfair, economically, to us, to the United States. Because it really helps them more so than the United States, and we pay a disproportionate share.” Just recently President-elect Trump claimed that only five countries contributed to the NATO budget “what they were supposed to.” In addition, he called NATO “obsolete.”
Trump is not happy with NATO and not satisfied with Hungary’s defense spending either.
All NATO members have accepted guidelines that member states should target at least 2% of their GDP on defense. Of the 28 countries in the alliance, only five meet the goal — the U.S., Greece, Poland, Estonia and the U.K.
The U.S. spends the highest proportion of its GDP on defense: 3.61%. The second biggest NATO spender is Greece, at 2.38%. Five larger NATO countries spend less than 1%: Canada, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg, while tiny Iceland spends just 0.1% of its GDP.
NATO spending by member state in 2016. Click to enlarge.
According to NATO’s official report, Hungary’s defense spending is one of the lowest in the alliance: about 1% of the country’s GDP. Hungary’s spending is also the lowest among the Visegrad 4 countries. (Poland 2.00%, Slovakia 1.16%, Czech Republic 1.04%, Hungary 1.01%.)
Hungary accounts differently for some defense costs and in local currency the country spends about 350 billion Ft on defense; only 0.94% of the GDP.
The US President-elect made it clear that he expects that NATO members spend at least 2 percent which would mean that Hungary would have to double (!) its defense budget. In other words, the county will have to spend an additional 350 billion Ft. Needless to say, that this would have a devastating effect on Hungary’s spending on education, health and social services.
Trump thinks that the majority of the NATO members, Hungary among them, are cheating. They are getting a free ride on US expense; he and his supporters are angry.
To read the details of the NATO report, click here.
György Lázár
