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Nato allies on Tuesday unveiled tens of billions of dollars of defence industry deals to buy surveillance planes and advanced drones — and to show US President Donald Trump that Europe was spending more.
“It is money well spent,” Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said at the start of the landmark Nato summit in Turkey. Trump, who landed in Ankara for the summit on Tuesday afternoon, has previously called Nato “a paper tiger” that would be unable to function without US leadership and weaponry.
On a stage framed by slick videos and high-volume techno music, Rutte announced the deals as European allies strain to convince Trump that they are serious about taking more responsibility for the continent’s defence.
Some of the initiatives that Rutte revealed involved major contracts with US companies but there were also many that did not.
One of the biggest ticket items was a deal to buy up to ten surveillance planes from a consortium led by Sweden’s Saab and Canada’s Bombardier. The “GlobalEye” aircraft, which cost $400mn to $450mn each, will replace Nato’s own fleet of 14 Awacs early warning radar surveillance planes.
Saab president Micael Johansson said the planes, early versions of which are already in service, could be delivered from 2030 if the deal was finalised soon.
But Rutte also announced that allies would buy up to five Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton high-altitude surveillance drones. Norway, Finland, Germany and Denmark signed a letter of intent for the purchase of the drones that, based on recent US Department of Defense procurement figures, cost around $270mn each.
“We need a transatlantic defence-industrial revolution. The hum of machinery must become a roar,” Rutte said. “The money is there, and much more is coming. But this cash needs to be put to work . . . the security situation demands it.”
The splashy defence industry deals come after Rutte travelled to Washington late last month to try and ease US concerns that some European and Canadian defence spending was lagging behind their commitments.
At the White House, Rutte displayed a chart labelled “The Trump Trillion”, which showed Europe and Canadian allies had increased defence spending by $1.2tn since 2017.
But Trump had seemed unimpressed by Rutte’s presentation, saying he had been disappointed by some Nato allies’ refusal to join the Iran war. “We don’t need their money,” he said. “I just want loyalty.”
Ahead of the Nato summit, a senior US official said that Trump had “previewed where he feels our allies are in underperforming defence commitment, and he will deliver that message in person”. The US official added that Nato allies “need to be more capable” and need to “move on The Hague defence commitment as fast as possible”.
The Hague commitment involves spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, and Rutte said on Monday that the summit would require allies to present “clear, concrete and credible plans” to reach that target. He also warned that if any countries still had to be convinced, “we have ways to do that” but did not elaborate.
As well as reassuring Trump, a senior European official said that the flurry of defence agreements was intended to “promote our capability build-up, serve interoperability among Allies, and move us forward overall in deterring anyone who might be tempted to attack us”.
Yet some of the deals also underlined the challenges in Nato’s drive for transatlantic co-production of new weaponry.
German arms company Rheinmetall and US weapons giant Lockheed Martin announced progress on a plan to produce rockets and missiles in Germany.
But after months of wrangling, it fell short of the hopes voiced by Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger more than a year ago — including licensed production of interceptor missiles for Patriot air defence systems, the PAC-3, that have proved vital for the defence of Ukrainian cities from Russian ballistic missile attacks.
Instead, the two companies announced progress only on one of the less high-tech products, Atacms missiles, which the US is phasing out and replacing with a more high-tech successor.
A separate announcement unveiled plans for a dedicated PAC-3 maintenance facility on European soil. But the holy grail of producing PAC-3 interceptors in Europe under licence remained tantalisingly elusive.
Instead of a firm commitment, US under-secretary of defence Michael Duffey told reporters: “We remain open to the possibility of production outside the US.”
