President Donald Trump just pulled off what no globalist ever could—he got NATO to cough up real cash.

At the recent summit in the Netherlands, all 32 NATO members agreed to raise their defense spending target from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. That’s not just a policy shift—it’s a political earthquake, and one that Trump’s critics never saw coming.

For years, media pundits, foreign policy elites, and even members of Trump’s own administration warned that his blunt approach to NATO would wreck the alliance. They claimed his demands were unreasonable. That his threats to withhold U.S. support would destroy international trust. But here we are—Trump returned, laid down the law, and NATO folded.

“This is a big win for the U.S., Europe, and Western civilization,” Trump declared. NATO’s formal statement also reaffirmed the bedrock Article 5 guarantee—an attack on one is an attack on all—proving that unity hasn’t crumbled, even under pressure.

It wasn’t just policy hawks like Trump pushing the point. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that the dramatic spending shift was directly due to Trump’s leadership. “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” Rutte told Trump in a message the president later shared on Truth Social. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”

The new 5% target is more than symbolic. It dramatically increases the financial burden on European nations, some of which—like Spain—are already protesting. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the move “incompatible with our worldview.” Trump responded bluntly: “They want to stay at 2%. I think it’s terrible… we’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We’re going to make them pay twice as much.”

This major diplomatic win comes amid ongoing criticism from Democrats and former officials who claimed Trump would pull out of NATO entirely. In 2024, Sen. Chris Van Hollen warned Americans to be “scared as hell” about a second Trump term, while John Bolton predicted NATO would “almost certainly” lose U.S. membership under his leadership.

Even Joe Biden weighed in, calling Trump’s remarks about NATO “appalling and dangerous,” and former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg accused Trump of undermining Western security. Yet the facts now show the opposite: Trump’s pressure is producing results.

What critics once derided as recklessness is looking more like strategy.

The war in Ukraine brought fresh urgency to Europe’s defense obligations. Since 2022, the U.S. has spent $184.4 billion in support, while European allies have only slightly outpaced that total combined. Many NATO countries, including Canada, Italy, and Spain, still hadn’t met the original 2% commitment before this summit.

Trump’s insistence that America should no longer subsidize Europe’s defense has now forced a fundamental reckoning within NATO. The decision to up the ante to 5% by 2035 isn’t just about future planning—it’s a signal to Moscow, Beijing, and every doubter in the foreign policy establishment that the alliance is far from dead.

Once mocked as a potential NATO destroyer, Trump has instead reshaped it in America’s favor—forcing wealthy European nations to finally shoulder their share of the burden.

In one summit, Trump didn’t just vindicate his approach—he rewrote the rules.