Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby called on Thursday for NATO to be based on "partnership rather than dependency" as he arrived in Brussels for talks with the military alliance’s defense ministers.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not attending the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels; instead, Colby, who holds the Pentagon's No. 3 post, is representing the US.
Hegseth’s absence marks the second time in a row that a top Trump administration official has skipped a NATO meeting, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio missed a gathering of the alliance's foreign ministers in December.
Those absences and repeated tensions between US President Donald Trump and European nations - most recently over Greenland - have prompted fresh questions from European officials and commentators about Washington's commitment to NATO, which for decades has been the foundation of the continent's defense.
Trump has repeatedly called on European nations to increase their military spending and take more responsibility for their own security, reducing their reliance on the US. NATO leaders responded last year by agreeing to spend 5% of their GDP on defense and security-related investments.
Colby sees 'strong basis' for working with Europeans
Colby offered reassurance to European allies, declaring that "we have a really strong basis for working together" because European nations had agreed to lead the continent's conventional defense.
“Now it's time to march out together, to be pragmatic,” he told reporters, calling for an alliance "based on partnership rather than dependency, and really a return to what NATO was originally intended for”.
In a sign of the shifting balance in the alliance, NATO announced this week that the US will turn over two of its major command posts - in Naples, Italy and Norfolk, Virginia - to European officers.
At the start of Thursday's meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said allies were stepping up to take more responsibility.
"We are already seeing significant increases in allied defense spending," he said. “Investment is up by tens of billions."