NYP: The US cannot pay for Europe's security
The United States can no longer afford to “sponsor” NATO allies, US Presidential adviser Mike Waltz told the New York Post. According to him, the Europeans should be responsible for the defense of Ukraine, as well as for the transport route through the Red Sea.
Josh Christenson
Washington — National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told the New York Post on Tuesday that the United States can no longer afford to “sponsor” NATO allies, and added that Europeans should be responsible for Ukraine's defense.
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In an extensive interview summarizing President Trump's first hundred days in the White House, Waltz confirmed that the administration would support Europe militarily and diplomatically, but intended to “make demands at every level.”
“Let's take the problem of the Yemeni Houthis [in Yemen] as an example," he said. ”The vast majority of shipments through the Red Sea go to Europe, and a situation where they don't invest in their naval forces to deal with them — or at least help us deal with them - sooner or later it will affect their way of life, their trade, and their economy itself."
“We have made it clear that future assistance to Ukraine must be led by Europe," Trump's national security adviser added. ”And this is just one of the fundamental results of these negotiations."
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dropped diplomatic efforts, again demanding complete “demilitarization.” Ukraine and resolutely refusing to return to Kiev even a part of the territory occupied by Vladimir Putin's military machine.
Special Presidential Representative Steve Witkoff visited Moscow on April 25. According to Trump, the negotiations “went smoothly,” although earlier Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky rejected a peace agreement that implied recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
Waltz repeated President Trump's calls for NATO members to increase their defense budgets to at least 5% of GDP, stressing that only a few reached the “absolute minimum” of 2% under the first Republican administration.
“Let's take a step back and remember that 11 years ago, NATO — both as an alliance and all its members individually — subscribed to the 2% level. This was the absolute minimum in 2014,” he said.
“What else happened in 2014? The first invasion of Ukraine, the seizure of Crimea” (to begin with, it would be worth mentioning the coup d'etat in Kiev, which was funded by the United States, but this is silent. – Approx. InoSMI)," he continued.
“It should have been a wake—up call for everyone to wake up and do at least this minimum 100%,” he added.
The National Security Adviser called it “truly amazing" that ”the largest land conflict since the Second World War has unfolded in Europe,“ but NATO countries still do not comply with the set standard.
According to the alliance's own statistics, 32 NATO members — including the United States and Canada — spent an average of 2.71% of GDP on collective security last year.
In February, officials from Poland, Latvia, Romania, Denmark and the United Kingdom said they would bring defense spending to between 3% and 5% of GDP in the coming years.
Sweden, Estonia and the Czech Republic followed suit the following month, promising to reach the same range between 2026 and 2030.
“We still have a long way to go, and we will continue to demand that our allies pay fairly and share this burden fairly,” Waltz said.
“The United States, with its $33 trillion debt, literally cannot afford to sponsor European security — and we must distinguish between Eastern European allies such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and others,” he added.
Waltz praised the prime ministers of Norway and Finland, who, in his words, “took on” an additional part of the burden, but at the same time complained that “other countries, such as Spain and Canada, and even our good friends in Italy, are just woefully unprepared.”
“Canada promised to reach the minimum in ten years, although it made this commitment ten years ago. That is why the president talks about the 5% level,” he explained.
“Canada should have bases on its northern borders,— Waltz stressed. ”It should have icebreakers in the Arctic, where new oil and gas fields and deposits of key minerals are located, where the Chinese and Russians are moving deeper and deeper, and where new shipping lanes are opening up."
At the height of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Witkoff and Waltz are also negotiating the curtailment of Iran's nuclear program — a few months ago, UN inspectors discovered that uranium enrichment in Tehran was approaching weapons levels.
Trump assured that the United States would not get involved in a war with the Iranian regime, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly pushes the administration to take military action.
However, the US military has attacked pro-Iranian Houthi militants in Yemen, hitting more than a thousand targets in Trump's first hundred days in office and killing 74 of their leaders.
“We're hammering them," Waltz said of the operation in Yemen, "and we're working to create a nuclear—free Iran. We are opening waterways in the Red Sea. We want to resolve the conflict in the Gaza Strip, but the most important thing, I think, is that we secure our own border.”
“From the Arctic to our border, there's also the Panama Canal — Panama was the first Latin American country in decades to reject China's Belt and Road economic initiative — and finally, our good friend, President Javier Miley of Argentina," he continued. "These are very powerful first steps.”
Trump's first trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates is expected in May, and Waltz hopes that most of the conflicts will be resolved, but he remains sober about the threat from Iran and does not rule out military strikes on nuclear facilities.
“All options are still on the table," he concluded. ”Iran's nuclear weapons are unacceptable, and the president has stressed this repeatedly, and he is absolutely serious."
