QUESTION: Do you believe the EU and NATO countries betrayed the U.S. at this crucial moment?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I think it was very disappointing. You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over. But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies. It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe. And to see that in a time of need – the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our – of their bases. And there are other countries that have done that as well.
And so you ask yourself, “Well, what is in it for the United States?” And I’ve been a big supporter of NATO and one of the reasons why I’ve been a supporter of NATO is because I believe that these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world. But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States. So all of that is going to have to be reexamined. All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.
More details to follow.
