Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States will revisit its relationship with NATO in the wake of tensions surrounding the ongoing conflict with Iran.
When asked by a reporter if he believes the European Union and NATO “betrayed the U.S,” Rubio said the nations’ responses were “very disappointing.”
“You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over,” he said. “But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies. It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe. And to see that in a time of need – the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our – of their bases. And there are other countries that have done that as well.”
Rubio explained that he has supported NATO because he believes “these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world,” although he noted this relationship now faces renewed scrutiny because “if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement.”
“That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States,” he said. “So all of that is going to have to be reexamined. All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.”
Earlier this month, President Trump criticized NATO nations for their lack of urgency in engaging in the military operation against Iran.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street.”
