WASHINGTON, April 23. /TASS/. The American administration believes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should be a truly defensive alliance, not an alliance between the United States and a "handful of junior partners," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with The Free Press.
"NATO is good as long as NATO is a real defense alliance, not the United States and a bunch of junior partners that aren’t doing their fair share," he said.
"I think alliances are always good. To be able to enter into a defense alliance with advanced economies and advanced militaries is a force multiplier for the United States. So absolutely, NATO is in our interest," Rubio said.
"Now, the question is, what kind of NATO? It has to be a NATO in which your partners are carrying their weight. And when you see a NATO where you have countries that are spending one percent of their GDP, then that’s really not an alliance, that’s a dependency."
Previously, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said that the United States' administration demands that all NATO allies bring military spending to 2% of GDP, as stipulated by agreements, by the alliance's next summit scheduled for this June. After taking office as president of the United States, Donald Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to ensure that NATO member states in Europe increase defense spending to 5% of GDP. According to the Financial Times, during the June NATO summit, the leaders of the alliance countries are likely to agree to increase military budgets to more than 3% of GDP.