Source: Chatham House –
US NATO ambassador on US security strategy: is Europe ‘a dynamic economy that can grow, or is it just a museum?’
News release
jon.wallace
Speaking at the Doha Forum in conversation with Chatham House CEO Bronwen Maddox, Mathew Whitaker defended the new US security strategy and its criticisms of Europe.
Chatham House Chief Executive Bronwen Maddox joined US Ambassador to NATO Mathew Whitaker in conversation at the Doha Forum on 6 December, discussing US attitudes to European defence under the Trump administration, and the administration’s new national security strategy.
Asked by Maddox what he thought of the reaction of those reading the strategy, who ‘feel that the US is sounding tougher on them than it is on countries formerly regarded as enemies, like Russia’, the ambassador replied that:
‘Nothing is, for me, new in this. I mean, it talks about that our allies, that are rich European countries, need to do more. That they have underspent over the last several decades, and they need to spend a lot more on their own defence, and therefore the collective defence.
‘I think that’s the headline. And then it also talks about, kind of, this concept: is Europe a dynamic economy that can grow or is it just a museum that is a relic of the past and we just go to see the cathedrals and the lovely wines and cheeses and beers, and waffles in the case of Brussels.’
Whitaker also addressed the national security strategy’s references to cultural values, citing the EU’s recent €120 million fine imposed on social media platform X, for breaching transparency rules of its Digital Services Act (DSA).
‘It is no longer a one-way street,’ he said, ‘and we are going to have expectations. Not only about picking up conventional defence of the European continent, but also in implementing things that our shared values should drive, things like free speech.
‘You saw the EU’s fine of X that happened in the last couple of days. And I think there are many examples where sort of traditional values that we still hold dear in the United States and are enshrined in our constitution are not necessarily valued as much in Europe.
‘And this document, I think, captures some of that and puts it in the conversation of how it affects and how it weakens cultures, how it weakens countries and how it ultimately will weaken their own sovereignty’.
Maddox replied saying:
‘We could get into a kind of ping pong about perceptions of free speech in either country. But as you were speaking, I was thinking of President Trump’s suggestion to an ABC reporter that the licence of ABC ought to be withdrawn because he didn’t like the question that she asked of a Saudi crown prince in the Oval Office. So the perceptions go both ways’.