London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

In NATO debut, Biden's Pentagon aims to rebuild trust damaged by Trump

President Joe Biden's administration will use a NATO defense gathering this week to begin what is expected to be a years-long effort to rebuild trust with European allies shaken by Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy.

U.S. officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity ahead of the event, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would emphasize U.S. commitment and appreciation for the trans-Atlantic alliance after Trump’s open hostility.

The NATO defense ministers' meeting, to be held virtually on Feb. 17-18 here, is the first major European event since Biden's swearing-in on Jan. 20. Biden will deliver remarks at a virtual gathering of the Munich security forum here on Feb. 19.

After years of Trump’s public ridiculing of NATO allies such as Germany who failed to reach defense spending targets, Biden’s Pentagon will, without abandoning those targets, focus on progress made toward bolstering NATO’s collective defense, officials said.

“Trust is something that can’t be built overnight, is something that takes time. It takes more than words. It takes action,” said a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s objectives for the NATO meeting.

To underscore Biden's views on NATO, the White House even took the rare step of releasing a video youtu.be/o9E1S3UPRFY on Jan. 27 of the U.S. president's first conversation with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in which he used the word "sacred" to describe the U.S. commitment to collective defense.

Still, Biden could face an uphill battle in Europe, which saw Washington upend its commitments under Trump, including pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord.

Trump’s portrayal of NATO as an organization in crisis, dragged down by laggard members, has left many European allies feeling worn down.

“There’s an exhaustion in European security circles from Trump and his unpredictability,” said a European NATO diplomat.

“We’ve just spent four years not talking to each other and the world is very different from four years ago. Biden needs to do a big repair job in Europe.”

Portugal’s Defence Minister Joao Gomes Cravinho, underscoring wariness about the United States, told the European Parliament on Jan. 28 that the Trump years were an “ideological experiment” that had “devastating effects in terms of the credibility of the United States and its strength internationally.”

The deadly Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol in which pro-Trump followers tried to keep him in power, has also done severe damage to America’s global image as a beacon of democracy, political analysts said.

RELIABLE ALLY?


One of Biden’s biggest challenges will be convincing allies there won’t be a return to another Trump era, or something akin to it, perhaps four or eight years down the line.

“That’s a legitimate fear and a legitimate concern,” said Rachel Rizzo, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security focusing on European security and NATO.

She added it will be a “slow process” to prove the United States can be a reliable ally.

French President Emmanuel Macron has gone so far as to say Europe needs its own sovereign defense strategy, independent of the United States here. Still, eastern European allies such as Poland – fearful of Russia - say European defense plans should only complement NATO, not replace it.

The NATO defense ministerial is expected to broach a range of issues, including efforts to end the two-decade-old war in Afghanistan.

The ministerial is also expected to include discussion of the so-called “2 percent target” which requires NATO members spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024.

Germany, Italy and Spain will all miss the 2024 target, according to initial projections released by NATO in October. Germany has pledged to reach the NATO spending target by 2031, and its failure angered Trump, who ordered a pullout of some 12,000 troops from Germany, declaring: “We don’t want to be the suckers any more.”

Asked about the target, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he expected Austin to emphasize that many allies were meeting the target and others were “striving to get there.”

“I think you’ll see a supportive message from the secretary about how relevant NATO is,” said Kirby, a retired Navy admiral.

Another U.S. official said that even with economic stress on budgets because of COVID-19, the expectation was still for allies to hit 2 percent of their GDP, with Washington likely to make the argument that the health crisis should not be allowed to turn into a security crisis.

“But you’ll hear a substantially different tone and a lot more emphasis on different capabilities,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It won’t be instrumentalized as a political weapon to beat up allies.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
×