Trump says NATO members agreed to meet spending commitments

U.S. President Trump declared victory Thursday in his campaign to get NATO members to boost spending so they can meet their commitment to spend 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on the military by 2024.

“Everyone agreed to pay more,” Trump told reporters in a press conference from Brussels following the two-day meeting of NATO members.

Trump has been pushing NATO members to increase their spending, due to decades of the U.S. paying vastly more than its European partners and the majority of NATO members continuing to miss their spending commitments.

The United States spent more than 3.5% of its GDP on defense in 2017, or about $685 billion, according to a NATO report. While that is down from more than $740 billion in 2011, it’s still well above the outlay of all other members. In 2017, the U.S. is estimated to have spent more than 69% of the cumulative total.

Heading into the NATO meeting, Trump said, “I’d be unhappy if everyone didn’t up their commitments substantially.“

After what was called a “tough” meeting, Trump added that after getting NATO member states to spend 2% [of GDP], “We will go higher.” The target date to get military spending to 2% is 2024.

As reported by Reuters, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would meet its NATO-agreed goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024, saying “cohesion within NATO was only possible if the burden was shared "fairly."

Fox Business' Brittany De Lea contributed to this article.