WARSAW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned the United States and Europe on Wednesday against any temptation to "go it alone" on security, amid increased tensions over the future of the transatlantic alliance and diverging views on Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump this month cast doubt on Washington's willingness to defend NATO allies it deemed were not paying enough for their own defence, triggering alarm among European leaders as they try to shore up Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian forces.
"Let me be absolutely clear, this is not the time to go it alone. Not for Europe or North America," Rutte said in a speech at the Warsaw School of Economics.
"The global security challenges are too great for any of us to face on our own. When it comes to keeping Europe and North America safe, there is no alternative to NATO," he added.
Rutte's call for transatlantic unity came days after the Atlantic reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance had complained about European allies in a chat group. Hegseth expressed his "loathing of European free-loading", according to the Atlantic.
Asked whether allies can still have confidence in the U.S. after the controversy, Rutte later told reporters: "Absolutely, can we trust the Americans, yes. They are our biggest partner, the biggest allies in NATO."
A number of European countries including Germany and Britain have announced plans to hike defence spending as Trump seeks a rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in his efforts to end the three-year-old war in Ukraine.
Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has questioned whether NATO will remain in its "current form" by the time of a NATO summit in The Hague in June.
EUROPE MUST 'STEP UP'
Trump has said NATO members should spend 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence – a significant increase from the current 2% target and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently meets.
"Yes, Europe needs to know that Uncle Sam still has our back. But America also needs to know that its NATO allies will step up," Rutte said, adding the June summit would provide an opportunity to build a "stronger, fairer and more lethal NATO".
"A fairer NATO means all allies doing their fair share," the former Dutch prime minister added.
While welcoming Trump's push for peace in Ukraine, Rutte said there would be no normalisation of relations with Russia once the war had ended.
"This will take decades because there is a total lack of confidence. The threat is still there," he told reporters.
Rutte said all 32 NATO allies were in the same boat while Russia remained "the most significant and direct threat to our security".
"With the latest missile technology coming out of Russia, the difference between an attack on Warsaw or an attack on Madrid is 10 minutes. So we are all on the eastern flank," he said.
(Additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Andrew Gray; Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Gareth Jones)
