{"id":7364,"date":"2026-06-19T03:45:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T00:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=7364"},"modified":"2026-06-19T03:45:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T00:45:27","slug":"us-demands-hardline-nato-warns-it-will-name-underspending-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/us-demands-hardline-nato-warns-it-will-name-underspending-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"US Demands Hardline NATO, Warns It Will Name Underspending Allies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US Defense Secretary <strong>Pete Hegseth<\/strong> delivered the message on June 18 during a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, calling for what he described as a transition to <em>NATO 3.0<\/em> \u2014 a return to the alliance&#8217;s core function as a serious conventional military force.<\/p>\n<p>According to <em>Brussels Signal<\/em>, Hegseth emphasized that the post-Cold War era of complacency must end, with European allies expected to shoulder primary responsibility for the continent&#8217;s conventional defense. He praised NATO Secretary General <strong>Mark Rutte<\/strong> for pushing member states toward greater self-reliance.<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth reminded allies of the commitment made at last year&#8217;s summit in The Hague, where all 32 member states pledged to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. While acknowledging that several countries are meeting the target, he made clear that others are falling short \u2014 and that the Trump administration will not hesitate to call them out publicly as well as privately.<\/p>\n<p>The Defense Secretary framed public accountability as an act of honest friendship, arguing that transparent expectations help allies rise to the challenge rather than enabling continued underperformance.<\/p>\n<p>He also pushed back against characterizations of the broader US military realignment in Europe as a withdrawal, instead describing it as strategic leadership under President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>. The repositioning follows a May decision to redeploy a substantial portion of US forces from Europe and Canada to other theaters, including the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n<p>That shift will reduce American contributions to the NATO Force Model, the framework outlining available forces in the event of conflict. European allies are now scrambling to fill the gap, with Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and other states expected to contribute additional troops, according to sources cited by Europa Press.<\/p>\n<p>Not all NATO members are embracing the 5 percent spending target. Spain and several other governments have expressed concern about the fiscal burden, though Washington appears unmoved by such objections.<\/p>\n<p>The May troop realignment is separate from the withdrawal of 5,000 US personnel from Germany, which President Trump ordered following a public dispute with German Chancellor <strong>Friedrich Merz<\/strong> over Berlin&#8217;s criticism of the US war on Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The twin moves signal a fundamental shift in American expectations for the alliance, with burden-sharing no longer a polite suggestion but an enforced requirement backed by the threat of public exposure for laggards.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/brusselssignal.eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brussels Signal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration warns it will publicly name NATO allies failing to meet defense spending commitments as it pushes for a refocused alliance emphasizing hard military power over politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[725,3298,2219,223,2431,1326,209],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-7364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brussels","tag-defense-spending","tag-mark-rutte","tag-nato","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-trump-administration","tag-united-states","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7595,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions\/7595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7364"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=7364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}