Donald Trump’s war secretary has announced the US will review its forces in Europe after launching a fresh attack on the amount of money the UK and other allies put into the Nato alliance.
Pete Hegseth told Nato defence ministers that “for too long Nato has been a paper tiger and a one-way street” – referring to how much of the weight of troops and money have fallen on the US – at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
“No more,” he added. “For all of our clarity, too many allied capitals seem to still miss something in translation. Too many allies still don’t recognise the historic need that President Trump has made clear to them and to Nato itself to reforge a relevant, powerful military alliance, as President Trump put it.”
Citing the response from Europe to the US conflict in Iran, with many leaders expressing a reluctance to support the American and Israeli strikes, Mr Hegseth said: “[Trump] gave our allies a test to support America when we asked for their help, and too many failed it. The United States has defended Europe for generations.”
German chancellor Friedrich Merz drew ire from Trump after he suggested in April that Iran was humiliating the US in negotiations. He said: “The problem with conflicts like this is always you don’t just have to get in – you have to get out again. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq.”
“All he said was that our jets would need to take off from bases in Europe or our ship, our ships from ports to strike targets in the Middle East, Iranian targets that threaten European interests even more directly than they threaten us.
“But too many of our allies said no or tried to drown us in arcane legal debates or criticised us publicly for doing what they aren’t prepared or able to do themselves.
“It was shameful,” he added. “These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters at risk by denying them the predictable access facing overflight that never should have been in question at all.”
In retaliation, he announced that the US could no longer pay more for Nato’s defence than allies, and American dues would be contingent of other allies meeting the spending targets.
The Pentagon is set to launch a review of US troop posture in Europe, the war secretary added, warning that some Nato allies would fail.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte affirmed that European members of the alliance were already committing to replace battlefield kit the US was withdrawing from its allocation, according to Politico.
“What we are working on is to make sure that what the US has been providing so far will be filled,” he told reporters in Brussels. “Most of [and] a lot of it done — some of it nearly, and some of it requiring more debates and discussions.”
“The US is saying, ‘we have adjusted our contributions to the Nato force model,’ that means other allies have to step up,” Rutte said. “We see that European allies and Canada are ready, willing and able to do more.”
