BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory \u2014 before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.<\/p>\n
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US \u2014 keep on dreaming. You can\u2019t,\u201d Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.<\/p>\n
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend \u201cbillions and billions\u201d on building nuclear arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,\u201d Rutte said. \u201cSo hey, good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO\u2019s Article Five mutual defense clause remained \u201ctotal,\u201d but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.<\/p>\n
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU\u2019s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would \u201ctake more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,\u201d but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn\u2019t, and I will not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland. US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory \u2014 before backing off after talks …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92829,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92810\/revisions\/92829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}