Washington is unhappy that some European arms programs limit U.S. participation.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Wednesday slammed European NATO allies for prioritizing their own defense industry over American arms suppliers, according to three NATO diplomats.
The intervention came during Wednesday’s meeting of NATO foreign ministers — which was skipped by Landau’s boss Marco Rubio.
Landau, a longtime NATO skeptic who spoke first at the closed-door meeting, told ministers not to “bully” his country’s defense firms out of participating in Europe’s rearmament.
Quick, bring out the bicycle meme.
The US has a president who’s gone to great length in demonstrating that the US is unreliable and could be treacherous.
For example, why should Denmark or its allies (the entire EU and NATO) buy weapons from a country whose president has indicated that he dreams of annexing Greenland?
The situation currently is such: Ukraine needs weapons right now, and will happily use European money to buy US weapons. But purchases where multiple alternatives are viable, and there’s no hurry? Countries have started preferring their own weapons, or those of countries that are in the same boat. Depending solely on the US is seen as a vulnerability now.
Here in Eastern Europe, if offered a choice between a hypothetic identical US missile and a Swedish missile, I would consider it likely that supplies of the US missile may be absent at a critical time, while supplies of a Swedish missile will surely increase at a critical time. They’re under the same umbrella and will help patch it if someone tries breaking it.