EU to spend ‘hundreds of billions’ on US arms? Maybe not but demand is real, analysts say

BELFAST — After US President Donald Trump suggested the European Union would be buying “hundreds of billions” of dollars-worth of US weapon systems, analysts differed over how much of that claim was bluster — but all agreed it reflects Europe’s genuine need and interest in American defense products.

Sitting alongside European Union President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Trump ran down what he said were future EU investments for a high-profile but as-yet-unsigned trade agreement and noted the military is a “big number.”

“But that’s one number we’re not determining. It’s going to be whatever it is, but they’re going to be purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of military equipment,” the American president said.

Even with Trump’s hedge that the figure hasn’t been determined, analyst Max Bergmann said “hundreds of billions” seemed like a stretch and one he doesn’t take “literally.”

“I take it figuratively. [But] Europeans agree to keep buying American weapons” and that’s not surprising, said Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. 

“There has already been an indication of this” trend because Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, recently convinced European alliance members to agree to “buy US security assistance for Ukraine.” NATO partners also recently agreed to a significant jump in defense spending, up to 3.5 percent of GDP for core military capabilities and another 1.5 percent for national security-related issues.

Bergmann added, if it is a literal claim, “there’s a lot of work that has to be done” in budgeting terms by individual nations, but ultimately no specifics have been drawn up by the trade deal alone,

Capital Alpha Partners, an equity research firm, told investors in a recent newsletter that such a figure is “unlikely” to be reached over the next five years.

The firm noted that “NATO Defense Expenditure data for 2024 shows that Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Sweden collectively spent $104 billion on military equipment.” It did surmise more broadly that “U.S.-European defense trade will be sustained and there will remain some areas of opportunity for U.S. firms to provide equipment that can be delivered before Europe develops more of its own, and/or because there is capacity in the U.S.”

Tim Lawrenson, a European defense analyst, made clear however that he believed Trump’s figure is not completely out of reach, depending on that timeline. Over the same five-year time period, he said, “I don’t think it is at all unrealistic for the EU countries collectively, to spend … $100 billion plus on US defense equipment,” especially when spending habits since the outbreak of the Ukraine war are considered.

“There’ll be a lot of money still to flow through in terms of spending on US equipment that hasn’t even … been delivered yet, and then new commitments, no doubt, that are going to happen … going forwards,” he told Breaking Defense. “It doesn’t take too many F-35 deals [to reach spending] in the tens of billions.”

Europe’s Industrial Capacity In Question

Regardless of final figures, Lawrenson also noted that it is “fair enough to assume that EU countries will be buying a lot of kit from the US” based on two key factors: the scale of increased defense spending across Europe and the limitations of European production capacity.“Even if there’s a substantial investment in increasing capacity [on the continent], it’s not going to be enough to meet the demand … and of course, there are some … products that the EU doesn’t have an offering for anyway, so [it is] bound to go to the US or potentially others,” he added.EU countries deciding to buy US equipment will depend on how quickly Europe’s defense industrial base can speed up production lines, said Nele Loorents, research fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security, an Estonian think tank.

For Lawrenson, continued European investment in US weapons will “to a degree, undermine” Europe’s strategic autonomy plans, so highly prized by leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron. “There is a kind of conflict between the two,” he shared.From a US perspective, Bergmann pointed out that “voices in the Pentagon” concerned with a potential Indo-Pacific conflict against China (alongside continuing to send military equipment to Ukraine) are warning that they “don’t have enough capacity to supply Europe.” 

Equally, others in the Trump administration recognize that “if the Europeans go off and invest in their own defense industrial capacity, as opposed to buying from us and further taxing our own defense industrial base, there’s benefit there.”There is then, a conflict for Washington to manage, much like the comparison Lawrenson talks of for Europe.“The French want more European production,” added Bergmann. “I think in general, everyone in Europe agrees that there needs to be more European production, but when it comes to actually making the decision at the national level, what you see is” a rush to buy US equipment. 

“They [Europeans] know how to operate it. They know, it’s more reliable,” he said.

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