US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker confirmed the Trump administration’s plans during a security forum in Estonia, stating that the conversations will formally begin after June’s NATO summit in The Hague, Reuters reported.
“Nothing has been determined,” Whitaker said, “but as soon as we do, we are going to have these conversations in the structure of NATO.” He made it clear this isn’t just another round of diplomatic foot-dragging. “It’s more than 30 years of the US desire to reduce troops in Europe. President Trump just said, enough—this is going to happen, and it’s going to happen now.”
The remarks starkly contrast with previous administrations’ foreign policy, which treated NATO like a sacred cow regardless of how little European members contributed in return. Trump-era officials have increasingly called out what they see as chronic European underfunding and dependency.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth minced no words earlier this year, declaring that “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”
In private discussions over the allegedly encrypted messaging app Signal, Hegseth reportedly expressed his “loathing of European free-loading,” a sentiment echoed by Vice President J.D. Vance. The two have become key voices pushing to restore a foreign policy rooted in American interests, not global entanglements.
Despite the uproar in some NATO capitals, Whitaker reassured allies that the US isn’t abandoning the alliance altogether—just recalibrating its role. “We’re going to remain in this alliance,” he said. “But we’re not going to have any more patience for foot-dragging.”
The numbers behind the move are substantial. America currently maintains an estimated 128,000 troops across Europe, with Germany hosting the lion’s share. Poland, Italy, and the UK also house significant contingents.
But the political winds are shifting, and rightly so. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently tried to tamp down fears after the US quietly redeployed forces away from a major Ukrainian support hub. Still, the writing’s on the wall.
For decades, Washington has carried the bulk of the military burden in Europe, funding and defending nations that often lecture Americans while failing to meet even basic NATO spending obligations. With ballooning domestic priorities and a border crisis back home, many Americans—especially those aligned with the nationalist, Trump-aligned right—are asking why their sons and daughters are still stationed abroad to defend countries that won’t defend themselves.
Critics of the withdrawal, unsurprisingly, warn of a “security gap” that Russia could exploit.
A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)— a prominent neoconservative think-tank aligned with the globalist foreign policy blob, which should be taken with a grain of salt—claims Moscow could be ready to strike a NATO ally within two years if the U.S. pulls out too quickly. But the same report admitted that Europe would need to cough up anywhere from $190 billion to $344 billion just to cover current American capabilities—something they’ve long resisted doing.
Whitaker also took a swipe at the European Union, warning against the bloc’s protectionist push to shut out non-EU firms from defense procurement. Such moves, he argued, would stifle innovation, raise costs, and damage NATO’s already fragile “interoperability.”
