DAVOS, Switzerland: NATO allies must pay their “fair share” on defence before considering enlarging the alliance, a US presidential envoy for special missions hit out Thursday, in a retort to the NATO chief who said members will need to increase defence spending.
“You’re going to run into a big buzzsaw in America if we have the NATO secretary general talking about adding Ukraine to NATO,” US envoy Richard Grenell said by video link at an event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Grenell said that NATO shouldn’t accept Ukraine into the transatlantic military alliance unless its members start hitting the group’s defence spending targets.
“You cannot ask the American people to expand the umbrella of NATO when the current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who need to step up,” Grenell said.
He was speaking after NATO secretary general and former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said minutes earlier that “full NATO membership is then the easiest outcome” for Ukraine if a “sustainable” peace is secured.
NATO members’ defence spending
Grenell also echoed US President Donald Trump’s call on NATO members to spend more on defence.
“We need to make sure that those leaders are spending the right amount of money. We need to be able to avoid war. And that means a credible threat from NATO,” he said.
The envoy blasted Trump’s predecessor for not speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the new US president was pressuring Ukraine and Russia “to the table”.
“There’s a huge frustration from Americans that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and our leaders aren’t speaking to each other to try to solve problems,” Grenell said.
The transatlantic alliance’s 32 countries in 2023 set a minimum level for defence spending of two percent of gross domestic product, but Trump has suggested raising this to five percent.
Rutte acknowledged that the share had to increase.
“We have collectively to move up and we will decide on the exact number later this year, but it will be considerably more than two (percent),” Rutte said.
He also said Europe would have to pay more for continued US defence support.
Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership
“We have to be willing to do that, because at this moment, they are paying more than the Europeans. And here Trump is right,” Rutte said.
Ukraine has unsuccessfully pushed NATO to be admitted to the group.
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When Rutte was Dutch prime minister, the Netherlands regularly failed to meet NATO’s 2 percent of GDP defence spending target. But he’s a convert now that he runs the powerful military alliance.
“Thanks partly also to [Trump] and maybe to a large extent, we have seen this upturn in spending in NATO on the European side,” the NATO chief said.
“We are safe now, but NATO collectively is not able to defend itself in 4 or 5 years if you stick to 2 percent now,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly harangued NATO allies to spend more on defence, discussed pulling the US out of the transatlantic military alliance, suggested massive new military spending targets and, on the 2024 election campaign trail, even said he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO countries who don’t pay up.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo was also at the Davos breakfast panel Thursday, and he took the opportunity to remind allies to focus less on sniping at each other, and more on the real villain of the moment.
“The enemy is Vladimir Putin. The enemy is outside. It’s not inside. And I see a lot of finger-pointing … That’s not helpful,” De Croo said.