Stop worrying about US and carry on, Nato chief tells Europe and Canada

Europe should “stop worrying so much” about Washington breaking away from the alliance, Nato’s chief said on Tuesday, amid US pressure on European allies to pay more for their defence.

Addressing the Nato Public Forum in The Hague, an event on the sidelines of the Nato Summit, Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary general, said he had been questioned many times since January about the reliability of the United States as an ally.

Asked on Tuesday whether the US was still with Nato, Rutte said “yes, they are” and that the US president and his senior officials had a total commitment to the alliance – albeit one that “comes with an expectation.”

US President Donald Trump has been pushing for non-US partners to increase their defence spending from about 2 per cent of GDP to 5 per cent, a level that Rutte said would be agreed to during the two-day summit, which Trump is scheduled to attend.

Trump has complained repeatedly about Nato since his first term between 2017 and 2021, and has threatened to not go to the defence of allies that are not fully paying for their defence.

Rutte agreed that the Europeans and Canadians were “not spending enough” on defence, an imbalance that was a “huge irritant”.