Lithuania has decided to increase its military spending to between five and six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2026 due to the threat of Russian aggression in the region, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said today.
This Baltic country, which borders Russia, currently spends a little over three percent of its GDP on the military.
With this announcement, it becomes the first NATO country to pledge to reach the five percent GDP target recently requested by incoming US President Donald Trump.
Nauseda said that this "historic decision" was made by the State Defense Council today, to reach that level of spending from 2026 to 2030.
"The possibility of Russian military aggression remains real but not imminent. We need to increase our efforts to significantly strengthen defense and deterrence, and devote more resources to this goal," Nauseda told reporters after a meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
When it reaches that goal, Lithuania will be the NATO country with the highest defense spending as a percentage of GDP. Currently, Poland leads the way, already spending more than four percent of GDP on defense, and plans to go higher.
Trump has been expressing skepticism about NATO for years, openly questioning the values of the alliance that has defined American foreign policy for decades and threatening not to defend member countries that fail to meet defense spending targets.
Earlier this month, Trump said NATO countries should spend at least 5 percent of their GDP on defense, up from the current target of 2 percent. He also said he would not rule out using military force to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory belonging to NATO member Denmark.
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