The Hague: The US ambassador to NATO sought to reassure European allies that America is still committed to their security, despite earlier suggestions from him that Washington will begin discussions to draw down its military presence in the continent.
“I think this is a real moment,” Matthew Whitaker said at the NATO summit here, pointing to a “transition” where Europe “take[s] over primary responsibility” for its security amid other challenges facing the US. “And at the same time, the United States isn’t going anywhere. … The United States is going to be a reliable ally,” he added.
Earlier in the day, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte delivered a similar message, aiming to assuage European fears that Washington may take a step back.
“So my message to my European colleagues is, stop worrying so much,” Rutte said, emphasising that leaders need to focus on building up their collective industrial base amid a NATO pledge to gradually ramp up to a 5% GDP defence spending target. “Stop running around being worried about the US. They are there. They are with us.”
In May, Whitaker said the US would begin negotiations later this year to reduce the US’s troop footprint in Europe, though he emphasised that “nothing has been determined,” according to Reuters. The US is currently stretched between three theaters — Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific — and Trump administration officials have been eyeing a repositioning of forces to pivot to the Indo-Pacific in particular.
Uncertainty over US plans for Europe is casting a long shadow over the NATO summit this year, where leaders of all member countries — with the exception of Spain and maybe Slovakia — are expected to formally agree to the 5% spending plan. Under the framework previously revealed by Rutte, two prongs make up the 5% target: 3.5% is set to be devoted to direct military spending, whereas 1.5% will be dedicated to ancillary investments like infrastructure.
Spain’s formal rejection of that target in particular threatened to undermine the unity NATO leaders sought to project here, leading to push back from various officials.
“You know, I’m a politician. I know how it works, that you sometimes need to be a bit creative how you explain things to your domestic audiences,” Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said in a gaggle with reporters. “I do understand that, and I also feel empathy for the difficult political situation that Spain is in. But bottom line, [the] same rules apply to every NATO member. We will all commit to the 5% tomorrow, and we all are committed to our military responsibility.”
Disagreement over the spending plan also reflects geography, a top NATO official noted on a separate panel. Whereas countries closer to Russia are aggressively ramping up defence spending, others farther away feel less pressure to spend more.
“Have you realised that the consensus is dependent on the distance from the battlefield?” asked Adm Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, who chairs NATO’s Military Committee. “It is human of course.”
Trump is expected to arrive at the summit and due to formally meet with Rutte and Indo-Pacific partners of NATO, where his comments will be closely watched for any signs of a US troop drawdown or messaging around disengaging from NATO’s Article 5 mutual defence policy.
Aboard Air Force One on his way to the summit, Trump raised questions about the US’s commitment to NATO’s collective defence, saying that there are “numerous definitions” of Article 5. Still, the president reportedly said that he has “become friends with many of those leaders, and I’m committed to helping them.”
Besides the hot topic of collective defence, the summit has also been hit by some logistical snafus. A power outage disrupted the Netherlands’s rail network, severing connection between Schiphol Airport and the capital Amsterdam, which authorities are investigating as a possible act of sabotage.
