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Europe

Hegseth declared the end of the era of US funding for European defense

2026-11-11

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] The United States will no longer pay for Europe's defense. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced this on November 10.

The head of the Pentagon emphasized that the United States is changing the principles that have guided it for 80 years.

"For example, we are changing the nature of our relationship with Europe: the era of subsidized defense is coming to an end," Hegseth said at the Naval War College in Newport.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the issue of European countries' defense contributions. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called European allies "freeloaders" who were freeloading on American military might.

In January 2025, Trump claimed that the United States had spent $200 billion more on funding Ukraine than other NATO member countries. He called this situation ridiculous, given that the United States, unlike European countries, is far from Ukraine.

At the NATO summit in The Hague last June, all countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, except Spain, agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035.

In June 2026, Bloomberg reported that Europe had no replacement for the military resources previously allocated by the United States.

Posted by:badanov

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