Hegseth announces Baltic states will meet NATO 5% spending commitment

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday that Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia have agreed to commit 5% of their countries’ GDPs to NATO defense spending.

The agreement marks an increase for the Baltic states, which had exceeded the alliance’s previously agreed threshold of 2%, established in 2014. Estonia spends 3.43% of its GDP on NATO defense efforts. Latvia is at 3.15%, and Lithuania is at 2.85%, according to NATO’s defense spending tracker. All three are among the NATO countries that contribute the highest percentage to defense. The pivot to 5% comes as President Donald Trump has called for European countries to contribute more to the alliance’s defense spending instead of mainly relying on expenditures from the United States.