(Bloomberg) -- Poland plans to increase its defense spending to 5% of economic output in 2025, said Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, as the country rearms in the face of the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Speaking in a Bloomberg TV interview on Friday, Sikorski said former US president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was “right to insist that allies should spend more.”
The pressure applied during Trump’s first stint in the White House, along with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in 2022 and the leadership of the current US administration, have led to a situation where currently 23 of 32 NATO members spend at least 2% of their economic output on defense, he said.
Poland plans to spend about 4% this year before ramping up further.
Spending shouldn’t be “the only yardstick,” Sikorski added. As an example, NATO member Iceland has a small defense budget, but plays an important role by allowing allies to refuel planes. And Poland sent troops to Afghanistan to help the US when needed, even when it was still spending less than 2% on defense, he said.
“We are no longer in eternal post-Cold War peace,” Sikorski told Balance of Power hosts Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz. “But an alliance is not a neighborhood security company.”
The prospect of Trump’s return to the White House in the November presidential election loomed large among NATO leaders during a three-day summit that ended in Washington on Thursday.
The Republican has repeatedly hectored allies for not spending enough on defense and boasted that, if elected, he can end the war in Ukraine by the time of his inauguration in January.
In advance of the US vote Poland has reached out to “an alternative administration,” Sikorski said. Polish President Andrzej Duda and Trump discussed the war in Ukraine during their two-and-half hour meeting at Trump Tower in New York in April.
“I talk to President Trump’s people and some of the things that they tell me about what they plan to do are interesting and creative,” Sikorski said. “Some of these things are controversial.” He didn’t elaborate.
Sikorski said he hopes Trump “would want to be a winner, and a winner of getting to a fair peace in Ukraine, which means Ukraine enjoying its liberty.”
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