“The President’s been very disappointed,” Rubio told reporters. “He’s not asking them to commit troops. He’s not asking them to send their fighter jets in. But they refuse to do anything.”
REPORTER: There are some reports that the U.S. is going to say this week that it will reduce its contribution to the NATO force model to shrink the number of forces available in the crisis or in attack.
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Well, that wouldn’t, first of all, any changes to our posture in NATO would not be for me to announce. That’s something that the President and the Department of War would do. This is a foreign ministers’ meeting.
We’ll talk about some of those issues. I don’t think anyone is shocked to know that the United States and the President, in particular, is very disappointed at NATO right now and what it has meant. Understand that I’ve been a strong supporter of NATO my entire career. I’ve defended it. I believe it’s important. I believe it’s important.
But the number one thing I used to tell people was, the reason why NATO is good for America, because that’s the question. Anytime you join anything, your number one answer has to be, why is this good for America? The reason why NATO is good for America, I know why NATO is good for Europe, but why is NATO good for America? Because it gives us bases in the region that allow us to project power during a contingency in the Middle East or somewhere else. So when that is the key rationale for why you’re in NATO, and then you have countries like Spain denying us the use of these bases, well, then why are you in NATO? That’s a very fair question.
Now, in fairness, other questions, other countries in NATO have been very helpful, but we need to discuss that. That needs to be addressed, and that’s what I hope to address and to set the table for the leaders meeting, which will be happening in Turkey, I think next month, if I’m not mistaken, in July.
REPORTER: Does the administration still believe that your NATO allies are cowards? That what? Does the administration still believe that your NATO allies are cowards?
RUBIO: Well, the President’s been very disappointed. Understand that there are many countries in NATO that agree with us that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, that Iran is a threat to the world. So the President said, fine, I’m going to do something about it. He’s not asking them to commit troops. He’s not asking them to send their fighter jets in. But they refuse to do anything.
So I think the President looks at that and says, hold on a second. If all these countries around the world agree with us that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, that this regime is a threat to world peace and security, that already have missiles that can reach Europe. They don’t have missiles that can reach America yet, but they have missiles that can reach Europe. We’re actually step forward and do something about it, and everyone goes into hiding. Yeah, I think we’re very upset about that. The President has made that very clear.
