President Donald Trump has once again needled his country’s allies over NATO spending in a late-night Truth Social meltdown.
Just before 11 p.m. ET on Thursday, Trump, 80, moaned that the alliance did not support his war in Iran, which he launched without congressional approval or public support.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!!” he wrote, sharing a graph.
While the U.S. does indeed contribute more money on defense, largely because of the size of its military and global commitments, Trump’s graph appears to conflate member states’ total defense budgets with their direct contributions to NATO.
NATO defines defense expenditure as payments made by a national government specifically to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of Allies, or of the Alliance.
Under pressure from Trump last year, members agreed to target defense spending of 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product. That target refers to each country’s own military spending—not payments into NATO’s common budgets, which total only a few billion dollars annually.
But Trump’s graph states that the U.S. contributes $999 billion. This appears to be the amount he requested for U.S. defense in 2026 under his One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The second-largest contributor, per Trump’s graph, is the United Kingdom, with $90.5 billion. That is roughly its defense budget, not its NATO contribution.
The same applies to France, Italy, and Poland. The chart compares what each nation spends on its own military, not what it pays directly to NATO, meaning the figures cannot be used to show how much each ally contributes to the alliance’s shared budget.
His complaint comes just days before NATO heads of state and government, as well as key partners, convene in Turkey for a summit.
In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the meeting in Ankara, the Turkish capital, could be tense because of Trump’s feelings. “The president’s views—frankly, disappointment—at some of our NATO allies and their response to our operations in the Middle East, they are well documented,” Rubio said. “That will have to be addressed.”
Trump, meanwhile, shared the same disinformation earlier on Thursday. At around 9 a.m. ET, he said, “The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing: U.S. 999 Billion Dollars, United Kingdom, 90.5 Billion Dollars, France, 66.5 Billion Dollars, Italy, 48.8 Billion Dollars, Poland, 44.3 Billion Dollars. Others, including Germany, are MUCH LOWER. (2014-2025) Ridiculous!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The British Ministry of Defence was also contacted.
