UK’s Jeremy Hunt: We have to spend more on defense

Jeremy Hunt thinks the time is right for a big boost to defense spending — in Europe, at least.

The U.K. chancellor — who faces growing calls from his party back home to ramp up Britain’s own defense spending amid global tensions — told POLITICO’s Global Playbook that “European countries” must step up.

Speaking on a trip to Washington, Hunt was pressed on Donald Trump’s long-standing demand that NATO members meet their financial obligations to the defense alliance.

The former U.S. president, set to do battle with incumbent Joe Biden later this year, spooked allies when he said he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries which don’t pay their way.

“It’s very important that European countries recognize that when it comes to America’s role in the world, we are actors, not observers,” Hunt, Britain’s top finance minister, said.

“In the end, we have to be prepared to spend more on defense. Donald Trump is someone who’s made that case very loudly, but actually, it’s been made by every American president, while I’ve been in public life.

“And, you know, that is a reasonable request from the United States that Europe contributes more to its own defense.”

As the man holding the U.K. purse strings, however, Hunt’s comments could raise eyebrows back in the U.K., where there’s intense debate over whether Britain’s governing Tories are spending enough on defense.

Defense Secretary Grant Shapps reportedly called for Hunt to increase defense spending from around 2.2 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP in last month’s government-wide budget, a request that was rebuffed.

This week ex-U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace dismissed a recent £500 million one-off defense budget uplift as a “shallow gimmick that assumes no one understands how defense departments work.”