Europe should invest more in its defense and rely less on USA
The main threat to NATO is the Alliance members who do not invest enough resources in developing their own defense, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
"My reaction is NATO is not in jeopardy. The only thing that puts NATO in jeopardy is the fact that we have NATO Allies who barely have militaries or whose militaries are not very capable because they've spent 40 years not spending any money on it. We've been NATO. And all President Trump has argued is what every president, every American president, has argued for the last 30 years, and that is these are rich countries, okay? These are rich countries, especially in Western Europe. They have plenty of money. They should be investing that in their national security, and they're not. You have countries spending 1.5%, 1% of their economy, and we just can’t keep subsidizing that. It's not fair and it's not sustainable," Rubio said.
Commenting on the statement by the leader of the German CDU-CSU party, Friedrich Merz, that Europe needs to gain independence from the United States, Rubio insisted that this was not a demand from the U.S. side.
"He thinks that the U.S. wants out of Europe, do your own thing. Is he misreading Donald Trump on the. No, we’re not saying do your own thing. We’re saying do more. It’s their continent, right? Why should we not be – why is it unreasonable for the United States to ask rich European countries to invest more money in their own national security?" the Secretary of State said.