37% of NATO members don’t pay their way – Washington –A decade since the 2% of GDP goal was set, a third of the bloc isn’t there yet | 8 April 2024 | Twelve NATO countries are yet to meet the pledge to spend 2% of their GDP on defense, the American ambassador to the alliance, Julianne Smith, said on Monday. The U.S.-led bloc set the two-percent goal in 2014, after the Western-backed coup in Kiev touched off the Donbass conflict. All members were supposed to make the “burden-sharing” benchmark within a decade. “Right now we have 20 allies that are meeting the 2% pledge – 20 allies,” Smith said in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “That is a significant increase over a decade. Of course we want it to be all 32 and we’re going to keep pushing until we get there.”