U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday lashed out at NATO allies in the course of the announcement of a six-month Pentagon review of U.S. forces in Europe, saying the longer term of the alliance relied on others stepping up their defence spending.
He also appeared to take a veiled dig at recent remarks made by Prime Minister Mark Carney about middle powers needing to band together.
Hegseth, addressing defence ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, said the goal of the review was to prompt Europe to do more while ensuring the U.S. military would have the opportunity to satisfy its global commitments. He added that NATO needed to return to “a hard-edged warfighting organization focused on Europe’s defence,” after a long time of “free riding” by non-U.S. allies.
Although Hegseth didn’t mention Canada or some other country by name, his remarks appeared to allude to Carney’s speech on the World Economic Forum in January while criticizing allies that “have yet to indicate a reputable path” to meeting their NATO spending commitments.
“A few of NATO’s largest economies, a few of the richest countries, allies which are happiest to go on concerning the rules-based international order and middle powers banding together, still appear to think the era of free riding is here,” Hegseth said.
“This isn’t what the president or America expects from this alliance. This is just not what any reasonable person would expect, and it’s not going to chop it anymore.”
Carney said during his speech: “Our view is the center powers must act together because if we’re not on the table, we’re on the menu.”
The Trump administration has voiced frustration with Canada in recent months for not clearly showing the way it plans to achieve NATO’s latest goal of spending no less than five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, including 3.5 per cent on “core” military capabilities.
Soon after the U.S. paused a joint defence review board with Canada last month, a senior Pentagon official said Canada hasn’t made “the hard decisions and tradeoffs needed” to be a “credible” military partner.
The official added Canada “has yet to articulate a path to achieve NATO’s latest defense spending targets,” and that talks meant to supply a transparent motion plan for increasing military readiness have broken down.
Defence Minister David McGuinty has pushed back on that criticism, pointing to past spending announcements that finally brought Canada to NATO’s old goal of two per cent this yr, in addition to future procurement plans that he said will get Canada to 5 per cent on schedule.
Global News has asked McGuinty’s office for comment on Hegseth’s remarks. The minister attended the NATO ministers’ meeting and was on account of travel to Luxembourg on Friday.
Review could lead on to U.S. troop, spending cuts
Hegseth on Thursday also echoed criticisms by U.S. President Donald Trump and other administration officials that some NATO allies wouldn’t allow U.S. forces to make use of their airbases within the opening days of the war with Iran, and were otherwise slow to supply assistance.
The defence minister called those decisions “shameful” and said they “put America’s little children, our little children, in danger.”
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He told his NATO counterparts that the six-month review will improve U.S. force posture and basing in Europe, while incentivizing allies to “step up and do their part.”
“Make no mistake about it, this will likely be an actual review,” he said. “It would be designed to be certain that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping as much as take primary responsibility for the defence of Europe.
“It’s a review that some countries will fail, and others will pass with flying colors.”
Hegseth added that U.S. “dues” to NATO — likely referring to allies’ shares of common funding to NATO capabilities — will likely be “contingent on other countries meeting their defence spending targets.”
“Where other allies don’t spend with urgency, our dues contributions will go down,” he said. “NATO will likely be a two-way street.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that European allies and Canada together spent US$90 billion more on defence last yr, a 20 per cent increase over 2024.
Hegseth’s announcement got here after the U.S. told its allies last month that it had decided to shrink the pool of U.S. military capabilities available to the alliance in a crisis, a framework generally known as the NATO Force Model.
Rutte downplayed the impact of the move, calling the force model “a planning tool,” but acknowledged that the reduction of U.S. contributions has already taken effect.
“The query yesterday got here up: Is that this immediate or not? It’s immediate,” he told reporters.
“So what would occur in point of fact? If war would break out … all allies, including the U.S., will max out what they will do to make sure that we are able to fight the war.”
He said some European countries “are already backfilling numerous those resources, in other cases, we’re nearly there, and there remains to be areas where we’d like more work to do. So we’re in a superb place.”
The U.S. announcement has nevertheless sent allies scrambling to fill the gaps in their very own crisis forces.
U.S. air force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander and the top of U.S. forces in Europe, said in an announcement earlier this month that manned and unmanned aircraft and naval vessels are two areas where Canada and European allies “can step up now and within the near term — as the USA reduces forces ‘sourced’ to the NATO Force Model in Europe and refocuses them elsewhere.”
Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding treaty – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on considered one of them will likely be considered an attack on all. It doesn’t oblige them to offer military support, although many likely would.
In essence, the USA is scaling back how it’d help, should an ally trigger Article 5.
Article 5 has only been invoked once, after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., which led to NATO forces fighting alongside America within the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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