NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reiterated this Thursday that the United States is committed to NATO and the transatlantic link, despite the national security strategy that calls for “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, that NATO is a perpetually expanding alliance.”
“If I look at the national security strategy through that prism, it is clear that the United States is committed to Europe, to keeping Europe safe,” defended the political head of NATO at a press conference from Berlin after meeting with the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz.
According to Rutte, the document recognizes the importance of “strong cooperation within NATO between European allies, Canada and the United States” to maintain the security of the military bloc.
The former Dutch prime minister has insisted that the United States has been demanding greater military spending on European allies since the time of Dwight Eisenhower, so Trump’s demands are not something new. “This has been a great source of irritation for the Americans since the 1950s. They have always been committed to NATO, but they also had the expectation that we would spend more, at least the same as them,” he stressed.
Together with Merz, Rutte has pointed out that European allies must take this step, following the commitment reached at the Hague summit to “achieve capabilities objectives” and guarantee that they will be able to repel threats, including “fighting the Russians if they attack us.”
Thus, he has played down the fact that the Trump Administration’s national security strategy leaves Europeans in a bad light and demands that NATO stop being an alliance “in perpetual expansion.”
The US document calls on Europe to resume ties with Russia to foster “strategic stability” with Moscow and for the continent to “stand on its own” in military matters and “operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations.”