Streeting has ‘total confidence’ UK will hit defense spending target

BERLIN — Britain has set a 2030 deadline for raising defense spending to 3% of GDP. Finding the money — and getting industry to deliver — will be the harder tests, U.K. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told POLITICO. U.K. Chancellor John Healey announced the target during last week’s budget, but faced criticism for not laying out how it would be funded. The government will set out next year how it plans to meet the 3% target by 2030 and its NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035. On a Monday visit to Brussels and Berlin, Streeting said he has “total confidence” that the U.K. will hit the 2030 goal, adding: “We deliver on time and on target.” The U.K. currently spends about 2.6% of GDP on defense.