The US is as committed to Nato as ever, secretary of state Marco Rubio said, hours after the alliance’s countries were left reeling by Donald Trump’s watershed tariff announcement.
Mr Rubio touched down in Brussels earlier on Thursday before Nato’s foreign ministers convened to discuss global security and ongoing efforts to reach peace in Ukraine.
But the 53-year-old met with his counterparts amid the backdrop of rising tensions between Washington and its allies within the alliance, elevated after the US president’s bombshell tariff speech on Wednesday.
The Trump administration had already raised significant doubts about Nato’s future, questioning the efficacy of the 75-year-old alliance and how far America’s membership was in the US national interest.
Dismissing doubts about Washington’s commitment to Nato as “hysteria”, Mr Rubio told reporters during a press conference with secretary-general Mark Rutte: "The United States is in Nato... The United States is as active in Nato as it has ever been.”
The US president is “not against Nato”, Mr Rubio said, rather he is “against a NATO that does not have the capabilities that it needs to fulfill the obligations that the treaty imposes upon each and every member state”.
He then called on European countries to develop a “pathway” to bring their defence spending to five per cent of GDP, a move which Mr Trump has previously called for and a vast increase on the current 2 per cent goal.
Addressing European concerns about the timeframe and extent to which the US was considering reducing reducing its Nato engagement, Mr Rubio said: "We do want to leave here with an understanding that we are on a pathway, a realistic pathway, to every single one of the members committing and fulfilling a promise to reach up to five per cent of spending.”
This included the US, he said, adding: "No one expects that you're going to be able to do this in one year or two. But the pathway has to be real."
Washington expects European ministers to use this week’s meeting to demonstrate their plans to boost defence spending, with just 23 of Nato’s 32 members meeting the current 2 per cent target last year.
But Ukraine will also likely be a key topic in the discussions, as Europe looks to gain more influence over the talks - which have been heavily led by the US so far.
Kirill Dmitriev, one of Vladimir Putin’s most trusted international envoys, is currently in Washington for the first official visit of a Russian since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The US-educated, former Goldman Sachs investment banker, who was invited by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, has a strong relationship with many US officials including key members of the Trump team - but details of the talks have so far been kept under wraps.
Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said on Thursday that at least one country from the so-called coalition of the willing - the group of countries willing to engage in peacekeeping efforts in Ukraine - should speak directly with Russia.
"My personal preference would be that our representatives of the Coalition of the Willing would be doing that. In other words France or the United Kingdom," he said.
Mr Stubb proposed France or the UK as the best candidates to do so.
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