The US secretary of war has said America needs “partners, not protectorates,” amid a dispute over the military bloc’s burden sharing
The US will no longer “subsidize” the defense of “wealthy” allies, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said, reviving a long-running dispute between Washington and NATO’s European members over military spending.
The remarks were made at a major security summit in Singapore on Friday.
Hegseth linked the Trump administration’s push for higher allied defense spending to its broader strategy of shifting resources toward the Indo-Pacific and countering what he described as Chinese “hegemony” in the region.
“The era of the United States subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over. We need partners, not protectorates. We seek alliances built on shared responsibility, not dependency,” Hegseth told the annual International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue, according to an official statement by the Department of War.
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