Security the priority as NATO summit kicks off in The Hague

Leaders of 32 nations gathered in The Hague, Netherlands on Tuesday for the first day of the yearly NATO summit. The alliance is expected to ask members to commit to using 5% of their gross domestic product for defense, according to a NATO news release. The investment plan would ramp up industrial production of weaponry including tanks and aircraft.

Support for Ukraine is also a planned focus of the summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in the release. NATO members also intend to work on other partnerships outside the alliance during the two-day summit, including cooperation with the European Union and nations in the Indo-Pacific region.

But the conflict between Iran and Israel, as well as the United States’ involvement and President Trump’s attempts to broker a ceasefire, may take center stage instead. In comments to the media on Tuesday morning as he left for the summit, Trump said he thought the ceasefire may have been broken unintentionally and that he would keep working with the two countries.

What have NATO members said about their plans for the summit? NATO members including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands have already committed to the 5% defense spending plan, according to the Associated Press.

But others are refusing to do so. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Monday said his country would not increase defense spending to meet the planned 5% commitment. Slovakia needed to focus on improving its standard of living, he said. In the future, his country may need to pursue a different solution than following NATO membership commitments, he said. Spain on Sunday received an exemption from the defense agreement, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He said European countries should focus on welfare, development aid, and diplomacy as well as security.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on the latest in the Israel-Iran conflict.