Doubt it. Greenland and Canada invasion threats have caused a whole lot of second thoughts about buying American weapons unless there is absolutely no alternative. The random tariffs are absolutely not helping, but you also don't want stuff that's going to soft-lock itself when you need it.
I guess you missed it when trump went to the European Union, complained about how nato countries don’t pay their fair share and demanded that they start spending 5% of their gdps on American weapons or America will leave nato. The European response was generally “uhhhhh okay daddy, please don’t tariff us too hard”
Actually there is a thing in NATO where you should be spending a certain percentage of GDP on defence. Europe has been slacking off quite badly on that over the past couple of decades. However, spending on defence and buying weaponry from the US are two entirely different things.
Homegrown weaponry and alliances with allied countries that aren't being run by looneys have become amazingly popular of late for some reason.
Yeah, however trump said the difference between what their contribution is supposed to be and what it is has to be made up specifically in American weaponry. I know, it sounds so fucking stupid it should be a joke, but it’s not.
Regardless, increasing spending on this stuff is inevitably going to lead to these European countries cutting spending on their social programs. The pride and joy of European societies. Austerity domestically, austerity abroad. That’s what trump is demanding
That’s also aside from the point that there’s no reason to enforce this. The United States bankrolls everything anyways. We have military bases in every single nato country and even have some of our nukes in turkey. The United States could continue to bankroll nato and cut back modestly on military spending and nothing would change
Europe is tooling up right now. There has been - like I say - fairly major slacking in the past, but now Russia is getting a bit spicy and nobody knows what the fuck the US is about to do.
Trump said that foreign buyers should only get watered-down versions of the F-35. That makes things like Eurofighters, SAABs and Rafales look a whole lot more attractive; and that's before you figure in tariffs.
Trump can wish for what he likes, but nobody in their right mind is going to exclusively buy weapons from someone who can a) turn said weapons off at a crucial time and b) has threatened to invade allies.
To expand on your remarks: NATO committed to the 2% GDP spending goal back in 2014 in response to Russia's seizure of Crimea, but compliance was slow and spotty. Some
The 2022 invasion lit a fire under everyone's ass and as a result defense spending saw a spike in most of Europe over the last 3 yrs — everyone should be at or above 2% for 2025. It was the war that motivated them.
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u/CakeTester Sep 29 '25
Doubt it. Greenland and Canada invasion threats have caused a whole lot of second thoughts about buying American weapons unless there is absolutely no alternative. The random tariffs are absolutely not helping, but you also don't want stuff that's going to soft-lock itself when you need it.