He praised the Asian countries which, according to him, “have long understood that the basis of a lasting partnership does not rest on idealistic values, but on a concrete alignment of national interests.” “When our interests converge, we act together with determination. When our interests diverge, we adapt with pragmatism, without drama and without preaching. I think Western Europe could learn from this,” he declared.
“They are finally catching up.”
Echoing the very critical position of the Trump administration towards the Europeans, Pete Hegseth criticized the latter for having long held “empty globalist rhetoric about an international order based on rules while European capitals opened wide their borders and emptied their armed with their substance.”
Donald Trump has long demanded that Europeans take greater responsibility for their own security. He wants to reduce the American military presence on the Old Continent, a subject that has come back to the table in recent weeks in the face of their refusal to support his war against Iran.
“Europe and NATO have important decisions to make and you will know more soon,” Pete Hegseth said on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an intergovernmental conference on security organized each year in Singapore. “For too long, polite appeals to our European allies to spend more on their own defense have gone unheeded,” he lamented. “They are finally catching up.”
