US castigates Europe over defense spend as NATO reassures Asia

The United States fired a fresh broadside at its NATO allies in Singapore over the weekend but Western European officials insisted the grouping remains resilient.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Asian partners for boosting defence spending and aligning closely with Washington as tensions with China mount.

"When our interests align, we act together with focused resolve," he said. "When our interests diverge, we adjust pragmatically without the drama or the moralising. I think Western Europe might take note."

"Europe and NATO have some big decisions to make," he said.

President Donald Trump's administration has repeatedly accused European governments of underinvesting in their militaries and relying too heavily on U.S. protection, while urging both Europe and Asian allies to boost defence spending to 3.5% of GDP.

Washington announced plans in May to pull 5,000 troops out of Germany, and Trump has threatened to pull out of NATO.

A senior NATO official sought to downplay the U.S. troop withdrawal, saying it was already planned and that the alliance's cohesion was unaffected.

"In a mature alliance, if one ally which in this case is the principal stakeholder needs to redirect some power somewhere else, he can do so, and the others must be able to step in," said Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee.

Nils Hilmer, state secretary at Germany's Federal Ministry of Defence, said Berlin was accelerating military investment regardless of future U.S. deployments.

"What we know for sure... is that there's going to be shifts in that field," he said. "That's why we are about to take the security in our own hands."

European ministers also used the forum to reassure Asian partners that NATO remained credible beyond its immediate neighbourhood.

"Our credibility in Asia also depends on our robustness in Europe, defending Ukraine in the face of the Russian aggression," said French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin in a speech to delegates.

Other European defence ministers argued that security theatres are increasingly intertwined.

"The European Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific theatres are becoming inseparable," said Tore Sandvik, Norway's minister of defence, noting that North Korean troops were fighting in Ukraine.

"The U.S. will be occupied in more theatres," he said.

But for all the criticism from the Pentagon, several U.S. Senators and members of the House of Representatives said they were seeking to reassure European and Asian allies that they had bipartisan support from Congress.

"I've heard the same anxiety from everyone, not just in the region," said U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth. "I've actually got NATO allies worried about America's commitment to the Indo-Pacific."

Still, scepticism among other delegates lingers over Europe's pace of change on investing in their collective security.

"Europe has to learn how to become a player," said Pavlo Klimkin, non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs. "There is no way around it. But it could be extremely beneficial for their partnership with the United States, because the States would respect such European drive."

-Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter, Rae Wee and Jun Yuan Yong; Editing by Greg Torode and Shri Navaratnam./Reuters