UK to raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, Starmer says 2 days before Trump meeting

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged Tuesday to raise U.K. defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, saying Europe is in a new era of insecurity that requires a "generational response."

The announcement came two days before Starmer is due at the White House to try to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to maintain American support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.

“We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability and threats to our security, they will only grow,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

“And so as the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together, and with strength.”

The U.K. currently spends 2.3% of gross domestic product on defense, and the government had previously set a 2.5% target, without setting a date.

Starmer told lawmakers that the increase amounts to an additional 13.4 billion pounds ($17 billion) a year. He said the goal is for defense spending to rise to 3% of GDP by 2035.

To pay for it, overseas development aid will be slashed from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income, he said, calling that a “very difficult and painful decision.”

Starmer said that his announcement amounted to the “biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War," and necessary because "tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin only respond to strength."

Defense chiefs welcomed the announcement, but aid groups and some lawmakers expressed alarm at the cut in development spending.

David Miliband, a former U.K. foreign secretary who heads the International Rescue Committee, said the global consequences of the aid cut "will be far reaching and devastating for people who need more help not less.

“The danger is that without humanitarian help more people will flee their homes to seek security and global health will be severely compromised,” he said.

Liberal Democrat legislator Monica Harding said slashing aid for the world's poorest “is short-sighted and a strategic and moral mistake" that "gives more leverage for Russia and China.”

The announcement came as European countries scramble to bolster their collective defense as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to quickly end the war in Ukraine.

Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don't pull their weight.

Starmer is due to meet with Trump at the White House on Thursday.

The prime minister has offered to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a force to safeguard a ceasefire under a plan being championed by the U.K. and France, but says an American "backstop" will be needed to ensure a lasting peace. Trump hasn't committed to providing security guarantees for Ukraine, saying Monday after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House that "Europe is going to make sure nothing happens."

Starmer's center-left government is seeking closer defense cooperation with Europe, as part of a "reset" with the European Union after years of bitterness over Brexit.

He also wants good relations with Washington, even as Trump, who advocates an "America First" foreign policy platform, disparages allies, threatens tariffs on trading partners and labels Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — but not Putin — a "dictator."

“We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic and the other," Starmer said. He said that he would tell Trump: “'I want this relationship to go from strength to strength.'"