Tensions within NATO over the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure allies on defense spending reflect “growing pains” rather than a crisis, the U.S. ambassador to the alliance told CNBC on Monday.
“The objective is for Europe to take charge of the conventional defense of the European continent,” he said. “We’re not going away, we’re just doing less,” Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said of US involvement in European defense and security, ahead of the NATO Summit in Ankara, Türkiyethis week.
Whitaker said he saw current tensions around European governments’ defense spending as “growing pains.”
“I see it as just the challenges we’ve faced before,” he said, pointing to uneven defense spending among European countries, including those he called “laggards” who will need to commit to increasing that figure over the next decade.
At last year’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, allies agreed to a defense spending target of 5% of GDP by 2035, including 3.5% for core defense spending.
It was widely seen as a breakthrough for the transatlantic alliance and came after years of pressure from Washington.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the task before us is to “transform allied commitments into concrete results” as world leaders gather in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Security analysts said the summit would focus on “burden shifting,” with allies considering how to organize defense without the United States at the center.
This comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in June a assessment of American forces in Europe and warned that allies failing to meet their spending commitments could suffer consequences.
Rutte told a news conference on Monday that the United States was “bringing NATO together” and that it was “wise” to make regular reviews of defense spending.
NATO allies must translate their economic means into military capabilities, overcome the fragmentation of national defense industries and cut red tape, Rutte said. He also said “tens of billions of new contracts” would be announced at the summit.
Whitaker stressed that Germany, Poland, the Baltics and Denmark were clear-minded about how to address security challenges.
Most European countries have significantly increased their defense spending after years of U.S. security guarantees. However, some countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, face more difficult budgetary trade-offs and budget restrictions than others.
“NATO and our allies were sleeping,” Whitaker said. “We restarted it and now we’re seeing what that process looks like.”
