Trump meets Starmer: Is the UK’s increase in defence spending enough?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stated that the country needs to reduce its foreign aid budget in order to increase defense spending because he believes it is necessary given the country’s “dangerous new era.”

Starmer pledged to increase defence spending from the current 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP by April 2027 as the UK experiences a “period of profound change” amid international conflicts, including a conflict in Ukraine.

After the upcoming general election in 2029, he also made a goal of spending “3 percent of GDP on defense.”

As prime minister, I have the first duty to protect our nation. According to a government handout, Starmer said, “It is crucial to increase our country’s resilience in an ever more dangerous world to protect the British people, resist future shocks, and advance British interests.”

He continued, “We will provide the stability that underpins economic growth by investing more in defense,” and that this will lead to national prosperity through the creation of new jobs, skills, and opportunities for everyone.

In light of concerns that a US decision to work closely with Russia to end the three-year conflict in Ukraine will hurt Kyiv and its allies in Europe, Starmer’s decision to announce the biggest defense spending increase since the Cold War.

The decision also comes as Starmer travels to Washington, DC, to meet with US President Donald Trump on Thursday.

Here’s what we know about the increase in defence spending:

What does the UK spend on defense?

According to the Ministry of Defence, the UK spent 53.9 billion pounds ($68.3bn) on defence during the 2023-2024 financial year, which ended on March 31.

After cutting foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3% until 2027, Starmer announced on Tuesday that the increase in defense spending will total 13.4 billion pounds ($17bn) annually.

Trump has called on members of the NATO military alliance, which includes the UK, to commit to spending 5 percent of their GDPs on defence, a threshold that the US, which has the world’s largest military, does not meet.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte also demanded that the spending target be raised in order to meet the “challenges of tomorrow,” despite NATO guidelines that require member states to devote at least 2% of their national output to defense.

How does Starmer justify spending more money on defense?

At a news conference on Tuesday, Starmer said increasing defence spending was “three years in the making”, referring to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Starmer responded to a question from Sky News about whether the decision had been made after Trump demanded that European nations raise their spending.

He claimed that he had been “arguing for some time” that the UK and Europe “needed more”.

Starmer continued, “The defense and security of the British people must always come first,” noting that he was not “happy” to make the decision to cut foreign aid and would do “everything” to reinstate it.

However, David Miliband, the former foreign secretary and current president of the International Rescue Committee, criticized the foreign aid cut as a “blow to Britain’s proud reputation as a global humanitarian and development leader.”

“Now is the time to step up and tackle poverty, conflict and insecurity, not further reduce the aid budget”, Miliband, who like Starmer is a member of the Labour Party, said in a statement.

What has been the response?

The University of Edinburgh senior lecturer in politics and international relations, Benjamin Martill, claimed that the government’s decision to increase defense spending was “wholly unsurprising.”

The UK and other European allies have been under pressure for years to increase the share of GDP that is spent on defense and the share that is on R&D, D, research and development, and real investment, voicing concerns that America is still largely funding European defense, according to Martill.

However, Ian Mitchell, co-director of Europe and senior policy fellow at the Centre for Global Development, told Al Jazeera that the decision was “short-sighted”.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s a need to increase defence spending, but I think that cutting that from the aid budget is self-defeating. …]As] Russia invades Ukraine, the UK’s main response is to cut its international aid budget. I think that’s a terrible look for the UK reputationally and short-sighted”, he said.

“There’s pressures on public spending, and he’s]Starmer’s] giving himself a major challenge by promising not to increase various taxes but also wanting to do more on public spending in relation to defence and health and elsewhere”, Mitchell explained.

How will the decision benefit British defenses?

At a time when Starmer has suggested that a future deployment of British troops in Ukraine is a possibility as part of a security guarantee in a peace agreement, Martill explained that the investment in the UK’s defence capabilities would aid in the modernization of the armed forces.

The increase in spending would benefit both the UK’s defense and the EU’s defense, according to Martill, and would also benefit its overall defense strategy.

However, some critics claim that a 2.5% defense budget won’t suffice to fully prepare Britain militarily for the challenges it faces.

The Conservative Party’s former defense minister Ben Wallace described the decision as a “staggering desertion of leadership.”

“Tone deaf to dangers of the world and demands of the United States”, Wallace wrote on X, adding that it is a “weak” commitment to the nation’s security.

extra 0.2% of GDP by 2027 on Defence?? A staggering desertion of leadership. The world’s threats and demands of the US are ignored. We are all in danger of losing out on a strong commitment to our security and nation.

What impact will the decision have on international aid?

In the autumn budget, the government allocated 13.3 billion pounds ($16.9bn) in foreign aid for the 2024-2025 fiscal year and 13.7 billion pounds ($17.4bn) in 2025-26 – about 0.5 percent of national economic output.

According to data from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Africa, along with the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia Pacific, receive the most aid.

Without revealing specifics about the areas that will see the biggest cuts, Starmer announced a 40% cut to the foreign aid budget. Mitchell said the effects will be “very substantial”.

“The UK has traditionally been quite a big humanitarian spender”, he said. “That seems impossible now in the light of the reductions”.

“The UK’s aid budget is actually focused on some of the poorest countries in the world, … supporting basic health services, reproductive rights, life-saving interventions]that] are going to have to stop and people’s lives will unfortunately be lost”, he added.

Additionally, Martill noted that foreign aid is a “significant component of the UK’s relations with many Global South countries that the UK has been actively trying to co-opt into supporting its worldview.”

Source: Aljazeera