NATO allies are planning to boost their defense spending by 4.3 percent this year, a $12 billion increase over 2016 levels that will escalate military spending by non-U.S. members countries to $277 billion, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.
The announcement came in the wake of President Donald Trump's vocal criticism that NATO allies were not paying their "fair share," the Washington Post reported.
"I welcome the strong focus of President Trump on defense spending and burden sharing, because it is important that we deliver," Stoltenberg told reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Many of the 2017 spending decisions were made prior to the 2016 presidential election. NATO allies, according to the Post, have hoped "to cast their spending decisions as a response to their own need to defend themselves."
The decision to increase spending was largely driven by increased concerns over Russian aggression—a sharp change from just a few years ago. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, a sense of security led NATO spending to decrease until Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Stoltenberg said the increase is "a clear demonstration that our alliance stands united in the face of any possible aggression."
"We have really shifted gears," he said.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis affirmed the U.S. commitment to its NATO allies, speaking alongside German Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen in Germany on Wednesday.
"The U.S. commitment to our NATO Article Five security guarantee is ironclad, as demonstrated over decades of our steadfastness and given voice more recently by President Trump before the American people," Mattis said.