Washington's ambassador to NATO echoed messages from Donald Trump for Europe to do considerably more amid rising tensions.
09:55, Sun, Feb 15, 2026 Updated: 09:57, Sun, Feb 15, 2026
US troops in Poland along NATO's eastern flank (Image: Getty)
The US is not turning its back on Europe, but NATO allies must do more, according to Washington’s ambassador to the alliance. European nations will largely be breathing a big sigh of relief over the comments by Matthew Whitaker following a period of heightened transatlantic tensions over Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Mr Whitaker said “Americans are not leaving” Europe or NATO as a whole. However, he did echo messaging from the US President that Europe needs to take on more of the burden of their own defence. He said doing this would enable the US — NATO’s greatest military power by some distance — to confront issues elsewhere.
Donald Trump has long called for other members of the NATO alliance to step up (Image: Getty)
Speaking to POLITICO, he said: “We need Europe, which are very rich countries, very successful countries, to sort of take over the conventional defence.
“That frees up the United States to take care of these other challenges and threats with our allies in those regions.”
Mr Trump has long expressed frustration over the amount other NATO allies have spent on defence.
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He previously said he wouldn’t defend nations not paying enough for their own defence.
The alliance has taken heed of Mr Trump’s warnings and agreed to ramp up defence spending following months of pressure from the US.
Nations will now spend 5% of their GDP on defence by 2035 amid growing global tensions.
The commitment involves members spending at least 3.5% of national income on core defence, with 1.5% on security-related areas. NATO’s current defence spending target is 2%.
The UK has pledged to increase defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.
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Earlier this week, it was announced Britain had lost command of NATO’s naval headquarters in the outskirts of London.
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