Meanwhile, Rubio returned to Washington after abandoning his planned final press conference, which, according to the American delegation, was due to a change of schedule.
Despite these discordant notes, the foreign ministers continued to emphasize the fact that the alliance still works.
“We all understand and feel the deep change in international relations and in this situation, Czech policy is to keep America as much as possible in European security,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský, in Politico. “NATO’s presence is one of the unique tools to do so.”
Other officials have stressed that they were responding to Trump’s demand to increase their military budgets.
“At a time of important security challenges, the first things come first – we favor of course security and defense,” said Lattonable Lattonable Minister Baiba Braže, whose country aims to increase its defense expenses to 5% of GDP by 2028.
Rutte seized these voices.
“We will invest more. Much more,” he said in his last press briefing.
Laura Kayali contributed to the reports of Paris.
