Trump to send 5,000 troops to Poland as NATO touts defense spending

NATO will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense in the coming years, its Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Friday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged thousands of new troops to its eastern flank.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, on Friday, Rutte said “the money is really coming in,” with allies “committing more and more.”

Last year, NATO member states agreed to raise their defense spending target from 2% of gross domestic product to 5%, with a view to reaching those levels by 2035.

Rutte said Friday that many of the alliance’s 32 members were accelerating the path to the 5% spending commitment.

“This literally means over the years hundreds of billions [of dollars] of extra defense spending,” he told journalists.

NATO’s newest member, Sweden — which announced a $4 billion defense investment this week — was on track to reach the 5% target by 2030, Rutte said.  

“The money is great, but we also need to spend it … of course on the men and women in uniform, but also to make sure they have what they need to deter and defend, and that is the defense industrial output,” he added.

“There is an intense debate going on with the defense industry, with the financial sector to make sure they do what is needed to ramp up production, not increasing prices but producing more. Good news is coming in, we make progress, but still lots needs to be done.”

Rutte’s comments on Friday came after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to deploy 5,000 new troops to Poland, reversing course a week after the Pentagon canceled plans to send 4,000 military personnel to the country, which borders Ukraine.

“Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” Trump said on Truth Social on Thursday.

CNBC reached out to the Polish government for comment on Trump’s announcement.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Pentagon said Poland “has shown both the ability and resolve to defend itself.”

“Other NATO allies should follow suit,” it added.

In 2025, Poland spent an estimated 4.48% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, making it NATO’s biggest defense spender as a percentage of its economy.

The U.S. spent an estimated 3.22% of its GDP on defense last year, making it the sixth biggest spender in the alliance under the same metric.

Still, in dollar value, the U.S. remains the alliance’s biggest spender on defense by far. NATO data shows that the U.S. spent an estimated $845 billion on defense last year, dwarfing the $559 billion spent by the rest of the alliance combined.

NATO member states committed to hiking defense spending last year,…