Rubio praises Estonia, other eastern flank NATO allies for pulling own weight

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised NATO's eastern member states, including Estonia, for their respective national defense contributions, while criticizing wealthy Western European countries that he claimed depend on the U.S. for security.
In an interview on SiriusXM's "The Megyn Kelly Show" on Thursday, Rubio pointed out that President Donald Trump's position on NATO "is the same every other president has had," which is that many of the U.S.' allies in NATO don't do enough to provide for their own security.
"Every other president has made the same complaint, he's just actually been serious about it," he stressed.
"In fairness, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia — the closer you are to Russia, the more they're spending as a percentage of their GDP on national defense," Rubio acknowledged.
"But then you have countries like France, okay, or you have countries like Germany — these are big economies, powerful economies, and they don't spend as much on national security," he continued, adding that this is because they rely on NATO.
"They say, 'Well, we don't need to spend that much on defense, because America has soldiers here, and they get attacked — they'll be our national defense,'" he noted.
This, Rubio claimed, allows them to spend that money on an "enormous" social safety net instead.
"When you ask those countries, 'Why can't you spend more on national security?' their argument is, 'Because it would require us to make cuts to welfare programs, to unemployment benefits, to being able to retire at 59' and all these other things," he said. "That's a choice they made. But we're subsidizing that."

Trump's new secretary of state suggested that in the long term, there's a conversation to be had about whether the U.S. needs to be "at the front end of securing the continent or as a backstop to securing the continent," and once again compared the alliance's eastern flank with its other European members.
"If you talk to countries on the eastern periphery, the ones closest to Russia, all of them are building the capability to be at the front end — the Poles, the Czechs, you know, all these different places," Rubio said.
"And if you move further west, to the richest economies — Germany, France, Spain — they don't spend enough on national security," he continued. "And they're relying on us to be the frontstop. And that's not an alliance; that's a dependence."
The U.S. doesn't want that, he stated, adding that they want a NATO in which they have strong and capable allies.
Rubio cited Finland as a favorable example as well.
"Finland's a very capable ally," he noted. "They make weapons; they bring something to the table. We need more countries like that, to behave in that manner in the alliance."
This would make NATO a stronger alliance, he continued, which would be able to work cooperatively.
"And not just in Europe, but in other challenges we face around the world," he added. "Hopefully even the Indo-Pacific, potentially."
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasized that NATO's European members should boost their defense spending, urging them to raise their respective defense spending to 5 percent GDP.

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Editor: Mait Ots, Aili Vahtla