As President Trump discusses the end of the war in Ukraine with European allies, a recurring theme in his messaging is that Europe is not doing enough. The United States has allocated more than any other country to supporting Ukraine through military (US$69 billion), financial (US$50 billion) and humanitarian (US$3.7 billion) aid. However, as a share of GDP, the United States ranks 12th for total bilateral allocations to support Ukraine. Allocations are the funds countries have either disbursed or committed to spend in their budgets.
As Dr Gorana Grgic pointed out in the USSC Briefing Room episode on the war in Ukraine, analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows that Europe is now spending more than the United States on aid for Ukraine(€132.3 billion vs €114.2 billion). If you include committed spending (spending that is pledged, but not yet disbursed or allocated in a country’s budget), European spending is more than double US spending (€247.4 billion vs €119.04 billion).
In January, then President-elect Trump said European countries should boost defence spending to 5% of their GDP and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated this in his speech at the Ukraine Defense Contract Group on 12 February. European countries are responding to this with talks about new targets for defence spending. The amount of money allocated towards supporting Ukraine ranges from 0.01% to 2.2% of GDP for the 31 European countries who have contributed. If this money was instead allocated to their defence spending, they would be significantly closer to reaching a 5% target.
