U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested NATO should consider ousting Spain from its alliance over the country’s trailing defense spending.  

“We had one laggard —  Spain. You have to call them and find why are they a laggard,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb. “They are doing well too, because of a lot of things we’ve done. They’re doing fine. They have no excuse to do this, but that’s alright. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly.”  

NATO allies agreed at a summit in June to meet Trump’s demand to allocate 5 percent of GDP to defense spending, with 3.5 percent on core military expenditures and 1.5 percent on broader security-related investments. Spain was the only country to refuse to commit to the benchmark. 

Trump lauded Finland for hiking military spending, which was largely in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “You were great about it. Spain has not been,” he told Stubb in the meeting. “Spain was the one who didn’t do it so I think you people will have to start speaking to Spain.” 

Spain is NATO’s lowest spender with defense expenditures of less than 1.2 percent of GDP in 2023, according to the alliance’s figures. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has maintained that his country needs to invest only 2.1 percent of GDP to meet its defense commitments. 

“I requested they [NATO allies] pay 5 percent and not 2 percent, and most people thought that was not going to happen, and it happened virtually unanimously,” Trump said of his defense demands.