European leaders are working to adapt to a new world order set by the Trump administration, which requires allies to take responsibility for their own military security — though not without challenges along the way.
At the 61st Munich Security Conference in Germany last month, Vice President JD Vance delivered a message Europe has long heard from President Donald Trump: Don’t rely on the United States as a crutch for defense.
“I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years in line with some new target,” Vance said. “And that’s great because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent.”
He added, “We think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.”
In the following weeks, Europe’s three leading countries responded to Vance’s remarks with initiatives to increase military spending. However, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France face economic challenges, forcing them to take drastic and sometimes unpopular measures to strengthen defense programs.
UK
A few weeks ago, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the largest increase in defense spending since the Cold War. On Feb. 25, Starmer revealed that the U.K. would increase its defense spending from the current 2.3% to 2.5% of the country’s gross domestic product by April 2027 and 3% by 2029.
The commitment came as Starmer warned that the U.K. “enters an era of intensifying geopolitical competition and conflict.”
The increased spending comes at a cost: the foreign aid budget. International development spending will drop from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027 to fund the defense boost.
The decision sparked uproar from critics, including Sarah Champion, a member of Parliament from the Labour Party who chairs the Commons International Development Committee.
Champion called on Starmer to rethink his decision, arguing that “cutting the aid budget to fund defence spending is a false economy that will only make the world less safe.”
Charities affected by the cuts, such as Save the Children, called it “a betrayal of the world’s most vulnerable children and the UK’s national interest.”
“This decision comes at a time when global solidarity has never been more important,” Save the Children CEO Moazzam Malik said in a statement. “Other countries will watch the UK’s decision and are likely to follow suit in reducing commitments to international collaboration. It will undermine aspirations to build a ‘rules-based order’ that is so essential for the UK’s long-term security and prosperity. It will make the world a more dangerous place for children now and in the future.”
Despite budget pressures and a flailing economy, the U.K. confirmed Wednesday that it will cut roughly $16 billion in welfare spending to increase defense spending by $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year. Rachel Reeves, the government’s chief financial minister, said the defense spending would aim to update the military with advanced technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence.
“We have to move quickly in a changing world,” Reeves told the House of Commons, “and that starts with investment.”
The welfare cuts are projected to save roughly $6.5 billion by 2030. They include restricting those under 22 from applying for certain welfare benefits and tightening eligibility requirements for people receiving a Personal Independence Payment, which supports disabled Britons.
The cuts prompted backlash from some members of Starmer’s own party, with Labour lawmakers such as Jon Trickett saying, “We are better than this as a country.”
“Cutting welfare payments to sick people is wrong morally, fiscally, and economically, and it’s cruel,” he wrote on X. “I will vote against when the time comes.”
British Defense Secretary John Healey has voiced support for the U.S. stance on European security, backing aggressive positioning on nuclear capabilities and military dominance. In a recent interview with Times Radio, Healey also defended U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments that criticized Europe for “freeloading” off of the U.S.
“The Americans have got a case,” Healey said. “On defense spending, on European security, on our support for Ukraine, European nations can and will do more, and the U.K. is leading the way.”
Germany
In 2024, Germany met NATO’s 2% of GDP defense spending threshold for the first time in more than 30 years. The country’s incoming conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, wants to raise that number by billions, citing “recent decisions by the American government.”
Last week, German lawmakers approved a plan lifting the country’s Schuldenbremse, or constitutional debt brake, which limited defense spending. Under the new policy backed by Merz, defense spending will no longer be subject to the country’s stringent fiscally conservative constraint, which allowed new borrowing worth only 0.35% of annual GDP and blocked the capacity to take out large loans.
Instead, defense spending of over 1% of GDP will effectively be exempt from the debt brake, allowing Germany to spend billions more on defense.
“In view of the threats to our freedom and peace on our continent, the rule for our defense now has to be ‘whatever it takes,’” Merz said when he initially announced the deal.
The move comes as Germany’s military is facing a dire shortage of soldiers, outdated equipment, and a host of other problems spurred by a decadeslong decline in defense spending. It was backed by the Social Democrats, whose co-leader, Lars Klingbeil, worried that “Europe stands today next to an aggressive Russia on one side and an unpredictable United States of America on the other side.”
“We must now do our homework in Europe — we must become stronger, we must take care of our own security,” he continued, per NPR.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte celebrated the deal, saying it sends “a powerful message of leadership and commitment to our shared security [that] will make a profound difference in NATO’s ability to deter and defend.”
Over a 10-year period, at 3.5% of GDP, the reforms could unlock up to $652 billion in defense funding, per a CNN analysis.
The public seems to be on board. In a survey conducted by German public broadcaster ARD released earlier this month, 59% of respondents agreed that Germany should significantly increase its debt to “cope with upcoming tasks, especially in defense and infrastructure.”
However, multiple German parties, including the Alternative for Germany, the Free Democratic Party, and The Left, opposed the changes to the debt brake. All three filed lawsuits seeking to stop Merz’s push, but the courts rejected them.
AfD believes that removing constitutional restrictions on borrowing could lead to rising interest rates and erode the value of European currency.
“Gigantic debts have been agreed to,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said after the German Parliament rescinded the debt brake. “The election losers SPD and Greens are popping corks. This is the death blow for the euro.”
France
France spends 2.1% of its GDP on defense annually. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to get that figure to over 3%, citing fears about growing Russian military dominance.
“For the past three years, the Russians have been spending 10% of their GDP on defense,” Macron said during a recent interview with French daily Le Figaro. “We need to prepare what comes next, with an objective of 3% to 3.5% of GDP.”
French Finance Minister Eric Lombard has echoed a similar sentiment.
“We’re not there yet, but we need to be heading towards (a wartime economy),” he told Le Parisien earlier this month. “We must go faster and harder,” he added during another interview with Franceinfo on Tuesday. “We will have to make greater efforts to protect ourselves, to build an economy in that protects peace, and to strengthen our defense within a European framework.”
France’s plans are ambitious: The country’s 2019-2025 Military Programming Act, a seven-year military planning law, allocated $319.6 billion to defense. The latest 2024-2030 MPL raised that figure to $447.4 billion — a 40% increase, per Euro News.
However, Macron is struggling to find ways to boost military spending given his country’s growing deficit.
One option his Cabinet is looking at is increasing taxes on the wealthy.
“We can look at how the effort can be shared among the French population,” Lombard said during an interview with Franceinfo, suggesting the fiscal burden could fall on “those with substantial savings.”
Lombard is also pushing the private sector — banks, asset managers, and insurance companies — to pledge more investments in France’s defense industry. In addition, he announced a new $490 million investment fund for the public last week. The fund will invest in France’s military-industrial complex and allow citizens to become “direct shareholders in companies in the defense sector” with “long-term placements,” Lombard said.
On Thursday, Macron got some good news from France’s statistics agency, INSEE, that the deficit had reached 5.8% of economic output. The figure is higher than 2023’s 5.4% deficit but still lower than the government’s projected estimate of 6%.
Still, even with a slightly better budget situation than expected, the country continues to grapple with where to find funds to finance the military. Under the current fiscal situation, hopes that lawmakers would repeal controversial pension reforms passed in 2023 that raised the retirement age have been crushed, sparking outrage from France’s left-wing and right-wing parties.
Earlier this month, French Prime Minister François Bayrou told Parliament it was “not possible” to repeal the pension reforms, saying the country could not afford to do so.
Similar to the position of France’s right-wing National Rally party, the leader of the left-wing France Unbowed slammed Bayrou’s decision.
“Bayrou says no to repealing retirement at 64… because of Trump and Putin,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon said in a post to X. “Total bulls***.”
WELCOMING EUROPE’S DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL RENAISSANCE
The fallout is a warning sign for Macron, experts say, in a country where retirement is a particularly sensitive subject.
“We’re in a confrontation that is not simply social, but also political and perhaps even, in France, an almost anthropological subject,” Pascal Cauchy, a history professor at the Institute of Political Studies at Sciences Po, told Courthouse News. “The question of retirement is not simply an age or a pension amount; it is also a whole history, and that’s maybe why this subject is very sensitive in France, whereas in other countries, things are sometimes simpler or less sensitive.”
