Rutte, “happy” with the US reprimand of the European allies: “We have to tell the truth to each other”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has been “happy” with the rebuke that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given European allies for not raising defense spending enough and for not helping Washington in its offensive against Iran, arguing that it is good to “tell each other the truth.”

“I am happy that he did it because we have to tell the truth to each other. This Alliance is going through a massive transformation, probably the biggest in its history, to build this NATO 3.0, and that also means that there are some turbulent waters. It is a complicated phase,” he indicated at a press conference after the meeting of NATO defense ministers that took place this Thursday.

Rutte has argued that the message behind the Pentagon chief’s criticism is an intention to “maintain pressure” on the rest of the allies. During the exchange with his counterparts, the head of NATO detailed, Hegseth criticized that despite the commitments of the member states to invest more in defense, “some are still holding back a little and need to do more.”

The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands has defended that the United States has expressed this Thursday “a very clear, strong commitment to NATO”, within the need to realize “a more equitable distribution of responsibilities” for the collective defense of the Old Continent.

Asked about some of the disqualifications expressed by the North American Secretary of Defense, such as that the Alliance’s reluctance to get involved in Iran was “shameful”, he limited himself to answering that he is not going to comment on “every word that each ally says” because he “never” does.

He has also justified that Hegseth left before the end of the North Atlantic Council held this Monday, not even waiting to meet with the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky: “He spent almost two hours listening to the debate (…) we knew he had to leave soon because he had previous commitments. But he spent almost two hours listening to the debate.”

Rutte’s statements come after Hegseth this Thursday attacked several European NATO partners for refusing to provide bases, ports and overflight permits for US military operations against Iran, going so far as to accuse them of putting “the sons and daughters of America at risk” during the conflict and describing their refusal to offer help to Washington as “shameful.”

During his speech at the North Atlantic Council, he went so far as to say that the Alliance “has been a paper tiger and a one-way street” for many years, and has also criticized European allies for putting the focus on “gender equality” and “climate change” instead of “on tanks and fighter jets.”