NATO is Facing a Catch-22 Thanks to Trump

The administration wants its European allies to spend more on American weapons, but is making it impossible for them to do so.

As the leaders of NATO’s 32 member nations arrive this week in Turkey to discuss their implementation plans for a record military buildup, some are rightly starting to worry that Donald Trump has plunged them into a classic Catch-22.

On the one hand, the U.S. president has demanded that Europe spend more on its own defense and buy more American-made weapons. On the other hand, his administration is making it increasingly impossible to do just that by delaying the delivery of already-purchased weapons systems and implementing changes restricting future sales.

The paradox is drawing frustrated Joseph Heller references in Europe. And if it isn’t somehow resolved, it could fatally undermine Trump’s own stated goal of having the continent shoulder more of its own protection.

Trump’s pressure was instrumental in nudging America’s NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of GDP each year on defense by 2035 at last year’s summit in the Hague, up from the old 2% threshold that was itself rarely met. Since then, the administration has continued signaling that Europe will not be able to rely on America alone for its defense.

Over the past 8 weeks alone, the U.S. has notified allies that the United States would be reducing its contributions to the NATO Force Model and has announced a six-month review of its military posture in Europe. These actions are being undertaken by the U.S. under the guise of creating “NATO 3.0,” a European-led, “post-Cold War embodiment of the defense alliance” which the Department of Defense describes as “what President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth believe the alliance should be.”

European governments, particularly those that have been on the frontlines of a hybrid fight against Russia for decades now, have gotten the message loud and clear and are looking to invest accordingly. Demand for U.S.-made items like Patriot air defense systems and interceptors, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (known as HIMARS) rocket launchers, and Tomahawk long-range strike munitions is on the rise as Europe looks to rapidly acquire the types of combat capabilities it needs to defend against threats of Moscow’s aggression. All of that should be music to the ears of a president who views the NATO alliance through a purely transactional lens.

Yet, a number of recent decisions by the Trump administration, including its war with Iran, have restricted the supply of available and desirable American weaponry just as demand has soared. Poland’s military representative to NATO, Lt. Gen. Piotr Błazeusz, recently described the situation as a “Catch-22” for European governments. “When they come to the US and say, ‘We would like to buy the system’ …they are told, ‘Okay, but [it will be delivered in ] 2029-2030 and you know, it still could be delayed.’”

The U.S. has already forced Europe to reckon with the impacts of pauses on planned U.S. munitions deliveries to several European nations, including Estonia. A “model” NATO ally by the administration’s own criteria, Estonia spent $200 million over three years ago to purchase six Lockheed Martin-manufactured HIMARS systems, demonstrating its willingness to “step up” and invest in its own defense. However, shipments of munitions for those HIMARS launchers have now been paused by the Pentagon until at least the end of the U.S. war with Iran, with no clear end to the pause or delivery date in sight. If even those who are model allies to the Trump administration can have their defense acquisitions indefinitely delayed without warning, what message does that send to other European partners?

Germany is in a similar boat — despite submitting an official request in 2025 to purchase Tomahawk missiles, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated in May 2026 that Germany was still awaiting a response, a year and a half later. Germany views Tomahawks as a key component in countering Russian medium- and long-range missiles, but is increasingly pessimistic about being able to purchase them anytime soon due to the sheer number expended by the U.S. during its war with Iran. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated, “the Americans don’t have enough for themselves right now.” And while the Department of Defense is working with American companies to accelerate production of high-demand munitions such as Patriot interceptors, it will likely take quite some time before those newly manufactured munitions are released to partners instead of being used to rebuild American stocks.

Even once those stocks are rebuilt, there is no guarantee that so-called “critical munitions” will be available to partners through the traditional Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process. In February 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Establishing an America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” which shifts the Foreign Military Sales program from a process driven by partner demand for specific capabilities from U.S. suppliers to one where partners are directed to a “sales catalog of prioritized platforms” assembled by the U.S. government. The administration argues that directing European dollars towards capabilities that the U.S. prioritizes for its own military will allow the use of foreign capital to expand domestic production capacity, essentially relying on partners to underwrite American priorities through the FMS program.

While implementation guidance from the Department of Defense is still unpublished, this reorientation of the FMS program away from partner demand towards “what America is willing to supply” is likely to cause additional heartburn for European partners.

This sales catalog approach only works if European partners have faith that they will be able to buy what they prioritize for their defense, without interference or meddling from the U.S. — faith that the administration’s actions to date have shown would be misplaced. In fact, recent statements from the Army all but confirm that partners will be counted on to subsidize production lines the Department of Defense itself won’t prioritize, even in a $1.5 trillion budget. The takeaway for European partners seems to be that they will be allowed to buy what the U.S. government decides they can buy, with that determination driven at least in part by which domestic production lines Washington has chosen to prioritize.

Instead of recognizing the issues that their policy decisions have caused and working to reassure European partners about the strength and trustworthiness of the U.S. defense industrial base, the Trump administration has chosen threats and coercion to keep Europe buying American. The comments provided by the Department of Defense (and other U.S. government agencies) on the European Commission’s proposed defense policy changes are perhaps the clearest example of these efforts. The Department vociferously objected to any EU effort to favor domestic weapons production, condemning “protectionist and exclusionary policies” that disadvantage American companies and threatening that the implementation of European preference measures would lead to a review of “all existing blanket waivers and exceptions to the ‘Buy American’ laws” on the books in the U.S.

That threat would effectively foreclose access to the U.S. market to European companies, crippling the ability of both major contractors like BAE and Leonardo as well as smaller start-up entrants to compete for American contract dollars. Without the ability to sell to America as well, companies would be hard-pressed to achieve production at scale, driving up prices for their customers in Europe.

European partners are clearly frustrated, and it should come as no surprise that despite the threats of retaliation from Trump, they are taking steps to diversify their defense suppliers and to “de-risk” from the U.S. defense industrial base. With increasing frequency, European leaders are making it clear in public statements and in policy proposals that confidence in the U.S. as a security provider is shaken, driving changes in procurement and discussions on strategic autonomy in European defense production.

At the end of Heller’s novel, the protagonist, Captain John Yossarian, escapes his own Catch-22 dilemma by rejecting the binary choice between a court-martial or an honorable discharge that would compromise his integrity; instead, he opts to escape to Sweden and gain control of his own destiny. There is a lesson to be learned here for the Trump administration — in creating a Catch-22 for Europe as it seeks to build up its defense capability, the U.S. might well push Europe to find its third option. The administration should take stock of the paradox it’s created for Europe before discussions in Ankara lead to a spending spree that benefits Turkish and French industry rather than America.