The Prime Minister is standing by New Zealand's planned defence spending, after Pete Hegseth's accused New Zealand of freeloading off the American military.

The US Secretary of War has used a global security summit in Singapore, to call on US allies to lift defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP.

He says New Zealand's goal to bring defence spending to 2 percent of GDP within the next eight years doesn't go far enough.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says New Zealand's economy isn't big enough to invest that kind of money into defence spending.

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