The Countries Most Exposed to Trump’s Security Policies
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Former President Trump’s national security strategy could have clear repercussions for U.S. allies if he is re-elected, particularly for countries with low defense spending and a high reliance on U.S. military aid.
As part of Trump’s ‘America First’ doctrine, countries would be expected to align with America’s interests, potentially undermining military alliances like NATO. Some of the most vulnerable countries to these security policy changes are close NATO allies.
This graphic shows the countries most affected by potential shifts in security policy under a Trump presidency, based on data from The Economist.
Methodology
The Economist created the Trump Risk Index, which assesses the exposure and vulnerability of America’s 70 largest trading partners to potential policy changes under a new administration. It was broken down into three sub-categories: security, immigration, and trade.
For the security sub-index, each country was given a score based on five indicators: reliance on U.S. military aid, U.S. troop presence, military spending, spending on U.S. arms, and defense alliance with America.
The Global Impact of Trump’s National Security Strategy
As the below table shows, Latin American countries are the most at risk, owing to their high reliance on U.S. military aid coupled with low levels of national defense spending.
RankCountryTrump Security Risk Score
(0 = least exposure, 100 = most exposure)
1 Costa Rica100
2 Panama100
3 Germany72.8
4 Bulgaria66.5
5 Japan65.3
6 Bahrain60.7
7 Ireland60.5
8 Malta59.2
9 Guatemala58.7
10 Estonia58.5
Germany, a close ally to the U.S., ranks in third due to low defense spending as a share of GDP and the presence of significant U.S. troops in the country.
Trump has previously looked to withdraw 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany given its comparatively low defense spending. However, this year marked the first time since the Cold War that Germany met the NATO target of 2% of GDP on defense spending, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
For NATO allies that don’t meet the 2% target, such as Estonia, Trump could remove America’s guaranteed security protections. Last year, the U.S. contributed $860 billion to NATO, outpacing the second-highest country, Germany, by more than tenfold.
Japan also ranks highly due to similar reasons as Germany, but the country spends more on U.S. arms, leaving the country less exposed. The country plans to deploy $1.6 billion in U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of the country’s largest military spending plan since the end of World War II. Overall, it totals $310 billion between 2023 and 2027.
Learn More on the Voronoi App
To learn more about this topic from a trade-perspective, check out this graphic that shows the countries most exposed to Trump’s potential trade policy changes.
The post Ranked: The Countries Most Exposed to Trump’s National Security Policies appeared first on Visual Capitalist.