As NATO member states struggle to meet their defense spending goals and war rages on Europe’s eastern front, officials are struggling to agree on a plan to shore up hundreds of billions of dollars to bolster defenses. 

Eight NATO countries did not meet their 2% target for defense spending in 2024. And as many member states struggle with chronically stressed budgets, calls to meet those goals are not being heeded quickly. 

The European Commission estimates about 500 billion euros, the equivalent of $524 billion in investments, are needed in the coming decade to defend Europe against evolving threats. 

NATO LEADERS PREDICT ERA OF 2% DEFENSE SPENDING ‘PROBABLY HISTORY’ AS TRUMP REPORTEDLY FLOATS HIGHER TARGET

The EU’s budget cannot be used to fund defense directly, and some European officials and NATO experts are proposing a global defense bank to dole out funds for military modernization. 

A defense, security and resilience (DSR) bank would issue bonds backed by AAA ratings for financially strapped countries to upgrade their defenses and would provide guarantees for commercial banks to offer credit to defense suppliers. 

“This is not a substitute to raising defense spending in each of these countries. I think it should be a supplemental tool,” Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chairman of the national security committee in the Lithuanian parliament and a former NATO official, told Fox News Digital. 

His remarks echo those of incoming President Trump, who has long threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO due to the number of nations missing the mark on the 2% goal for defense spending. 

“I think we have to look at it also as an opportunity for the U.S. as well,” Jeglinskas added. “I understand the skepticism by Donald Trump of the World Bank and then the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and IFC [International Finance Corporation] and other institutions. I think there’s been a lot of capital deployed and a lot of investments that these banks or institutions do. The real impact is, at best, questionable. So, I think we have to have very clear KPIs [key performance indicators]. We need to build defense.” 

The United States’ $824 billion defense budget in 2023 equaled half of total defense spending by all NATO member states combined at $1.47 trillion.

PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA READY TO COMPROMISE WITH TRUMP ON UKRAINE WAR

The return of Trump to the White House, coupled with a U.S. push to refocus on China, has left Europeans wondering whether the U.S. will have less of an appetite to defend Europe in years to come. 

More EU defense chiefs and foreign ministers have pitched the idea of issuing joint debt through bonds to finance military projects. 

But some countries like Germany have voiced concerns about maintaining their own sovereignty and a disproportionate financial burden on some countries. 

The DSR bank idea is explained at length in a new Atlantic Council report by defense fellow Rob Murray.

The EU’s budget cannot be used to fund defense directly. (Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

“For allies across both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions, the bank could go beyond offering low-interest loans for defense modernization to facilitating equipment leasing, currency hedging, and supporting critical infrastructure and rebuilding efforts in conflict zones like Ukraine,” Murray wrote. 

“An additional critical function of the DSR bank would be to underwrite the risk for commercial banks, enabling them to extend financing to defense companies across the supply chain.”

The goal would be to offer financing to small and medium-sized defense companies that often struggle with access to funds. 

“By providing loans with extended maturities, the bank would offer predictable and sustainable funding for defence modernisation. Its governance structures would align funding with collective security goals, such as upgrading arsenals and investing in emerging technologies,” Jeglinskas wrote in a recent op-ed for the Financial Times.

A defense, security and resilience (DSR) bank would issue bonds backed by AAA ratings for financially strapped countries to upgrade their defenses. (Alexandra Beier/Getty Images)

Asked how the DSR bank would get countries to agree on defense funding priorities, Jeglinskas likened the idea to the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a military alliance that includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Jeglinskas noted the 33 trillion euros in European assets under management across the continent. 

“There’s really no political will, no risk appetite to move them anywhere besides the kind of bond markets where they rest now,” he said. “But several nations need to build that initial capital, and then, by using the sovereign rating to get to hopefully AAA in capital markets, raise that money from bond markets and to start funding defense programs.”

The European Investment Bank has doled out long-term loans and guarantees to European nations’ projects that align with EU policy goals. 

“But even they are struggling with kind of shifting their mandate towards more dual-use technologies is still not allowed in their funding package,” said Jeglinskas. 

“Of course, every other bank in Europe is looking at EIB for their signals. That signaling hasn’t been there yet. So, that’s the point. We need to create some sort of mechanism, and that kind of global defense bank would be one of the tools that we could use to rally the capital and really direct it toward defense. So, it’s really creating another multilateral lending institution.”

An Orange County judge on Tuesday barred a former boyfriend of U.S. Rep. Katie Porter from contacting her or her children for the next five years and said he had committed domestic abuse by sending the congresswoman hundreds of threatening and harassing messages.

Superior Court Judge Elia Naqvi said her restraining order will bar 55-year-old Julian Willis from contacting Porter or her family. The order will also prohibit Willis from discussing Porter with nine of her current and former colleagues, including employees in her congressional office.

Porter, an Irvine Democrat who is leaving Congress next month, obtained a temporary restraining order against Willis last month.

She said in court filings that Willis, her former boyfriend of a decade, began bombarding her and her loved ones with messages that constituted “persistent abuse and harassment” after she asked him to move out of her Irvine home in August.

Porter said Willis sent more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number. The messages arrived so frequently that Porter said she feared for her safety and her emotional well-being.

Porter said Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.

On Tuesday, Porter waited in an Orange courtroom for nearly three hours as the judge worked through a docket of more than a dozen domestic violence cases.

When Porter’s case was called, the courtroom was empty except for two reporters. Porter sat next to her attorney with her hands folded in her lap, speaking only when the judge asked her a direct question.

Porter said that she and Willis had dated for a decade and that he had never physically abused her.

Porter also said Willis had repeatedly violated the November restraining order by continuing to email her and her colleagues and staff.

Porter’s attorney, Gerald Singleton, read a portion of an email that he received from Willis that said: “Please inform the court that I violated the terms of your partially approved, out-of-state restraining order.”

Singleton said it was a “great concern” that Willis had told Porter and law enforcement in New Jersey, where he is now living, that the restraining order didn’t apply to him.

Restraining orders can last up to five years in California. Naqvi said a five-year order was justified because the couple had been together for a decade and because it was “very concerning” that Willis had repeatedly violated the court order.

Porter declined to comment after the hearing.

Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is forced out by term limits, but has not said whether she will run.

Willis did not appear in court Tuesday and has not submitted a formal response to Porter’s allegations. He did not respond to a request seeking comment Tuesday.

He previously told The Times that he did not have a lawyer and that the “universe will deliver me the right attorney when it’s time.”

Porter’s court filings included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis.

The filing also included messages between Porter and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.

In one email that Willis sent to Singleton in late November, Willis said he had visited Porter’s oldest son at college out of state and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”

He told Porter’s attorney: “That’s what I am doing — and now you are next on my list, you piece of garbage.”

In another email in the filing, Willis told Singleton he would file a complaint with child protective services about Porter, who has a 12-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son.

Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out during a Porter town hall meeting at a park in Irvine.

When he came to power in 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was hailed as a progressive icon, a charismatic leftist with movie star good looks who promised to reform elections, tackle climate change and legalize marijuana. He quickly became one of the world’s best-known political figures, known for agenda-setting liberal policies — and for taking selfies with enraptured fans.

“He was seen as this Canadian rock star,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Nine years later, Trudeau is deeply unpopular at home and fighting for his job amid growing calls that he step down.

Voters blame Trudeau for Canada’s sluggish economy, housing crisis and near-record levels of immigration. For months now, polls have shown that it is highly unlikely that he could lead his Liberal Party to victory in the next election, which is due by Oct. 20 of next year.

The election of Donald Trump last month has made things worse for Trudeau.

Conservatives and even members of his own Liberal Party insist he isn’t doing enough to counter Trump, who has threatened to levy heavy tariffs on imports from Canada, and who has trolled Trudeau in recent weeks by repeatedly describing him as “governor” of a 51st American state.

This week, one of Trudeau’s staunchest allies, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, abruptly resigned over her disagreement with Trudeau’s approach to Trump.

In a sharply worded letter announcing her departure, Freeland accused Trudeau of embracing “costly political gimmicks” instead of directly confronting the U.S. leader and of putting his own interests ahead of the best interests of Canadians.

Freeland’s resignation, part of a recent exodus of Cabinet members, has thrown Trudeau’s government into disarray and prompted fresh demands from members of his caucus and other allied parties that he step down.

At the same time, Canada’s three opposition parties are demanding that Trudeau call new elections.

“Everything is spiraling out of control,” Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party, said Monday. “We simply cannot go on like this.”

The crisis facing Trudeau highlights the geopolitical havoc that Trump has wrought since his election, still weeks before his official return to the White House.

And it speaks to the same anti-incumbent headwinds and economic anxieties that helped doom the Democrats in recent U.S. elections.

“Everything that seemed bright and refreshing about Trudeau in 2015 now looks old and tired,” Bratt said.

Trudeau is the eldest son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who led Canada for 15 years beginning in 1968.

The younger Trudeau worked as a teacher before he entered politics. He was just 43 when he toppled the Conservative government of Stephen Harper by mobilizing legions of young voters energized by his promise to bring back social liberalism.

As prime minister, Trudeau legalized marijuana and enacted a national carbon tax that officials say will reduce the country’s emissions by a third by the end of this decade. He also became a prominent liberal counterweight to Trump, who was first elected in 2016.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk before a NATO meeting in England in 2019.

(Frank Augstein / Associated Press)

After Trump banned travel to the U.S. from several Muslim-majority countries in 2017, Trudeau announced that Canada’s doors were open.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” he wrote on the social media platform now known as X. “Diversity is our strength.”

Trudeau was largely praised for steering the country through a successful renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, a process that Freeland helmed.

But COVID-19 posed a challenge for Trudeau, with the country’s economic recovery more sluggish than that of the United States.

Recently, Trudeau has come under fire for allowing near-record numbers of migrants into Canada during and after the pandemic in an effort to spur economic growth.

An influx of temporary workers, international students and refugees helped push the country’s population from 38 million to 41 million in three years. Critics say it has increased existing competition for housing, healthcare and education.

Trudeau’s approval ratings continued to drop. Then Trump won reelection.

The incoming U.S. leader announced that on his first day in office he planned to levy a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico unless the countries curbed the flow of undocumented migrants and drugs into the United States.

Though many analysts believe Trump may be using the threat of tariffs as a negotiating tactic before he returns to the White House, the issue has caused deep anxiety in Canada.

It has also prompted a debate about what is the smartest strategy for Canada to deal with the pugnacious American leader: pushing back or taking a more conciliatory approach.

Trudeau appears to have chosen the second option. Last month he flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the president-elect. Then, in an apparent attempt to appease the incoming U.S. leader, Trudeau’s government announced a plan to beef up security along the U.S. border.

Freeland, on the other hand, has advocated a much tougher approach to Trump, one more in line with the stern response of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“A division over how to respond to the U.S. is front and center in the rationale for Freeland leaving,” said Christopher Sands, head of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.

Freeland’s resignation on Monday, when she was scheduled to deliver a key address on the country’s budget, “really shook the government,” Sands said. “I think this may hasten the end of the Trudeau government.”

Analysts say there are several possible outcomes for the current political crisis.

Trudeau could be forced by his own party to step down as leader of the Liberals, who would choose a new leader. Freeland is considered a possible pick. The Liberals would eventually have to call a new election, but their hope would be that a new leader at the top would help reduce their likely losses to the Conservatives, whom polls show with a large lead.

Alternatively, Trudeau could call for an election and lead the Liberals to the polls himself. This is what he says he intends to do.

Or the opposition parties in Parliament could introduce a no-confidence vote, which would trigger new elections. But their attempts to do so have so far failed.

Jonathan Malloy, a professor of political science at Carleton University, said it seems Trudeau’s days are numbered. “There’s a lot of pessimism and people are upset at government,” he said.

And Trump calling Canada the 51st state isn’t helping.

“It’s fair to say that Mr. Trump has a knack for finding people’s weak spots,” Malloy said. “And he struck directly at the main one in Canada, which is that the United States just views it as essentially the 51st state.”

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.