While President Trump cemented his return to the White House, French president Emmanuel Macron told his European opposite numbers this week to “wake up” and spend more on the defense of the continent to the dependence of the continent to the United States for security.
“What will we do in Europe if our best American friend withdraws their Mediterranean war ships? If they send their Atlantic fighter to the Pacific?” Macron said Monday, addressing members of the French army.
President Trump has criticized NATO Americans for not having achieved national defense spending objectives. During a demonstration of the Crusade in February 2024 in South Carolina, he said he would inspire Russia to “do whatever they want” to NATO allies who are not successful in the goal.
In Oval’s workplace on Monday, Trump repeated a request he made in January for the first time that NATO “must pay 5%. ” According to a 2014 agreement concluded through the group, the more than 30 Member States of the Alliance have committed to aim at least 2% of the price of their national economies in the year of defense. During his first mandate, Trump put tension in the American allies so that R this threshold, and some have a higher expenditure in the army since then, but many still do not make the bar 2%.
In his comments only two days after the US elections in November, Macron asked Europeans “in our sovereignty and our strategic autonomy” and reduce the dependence of the American army apparatus and defense leadership.
CBS News spoke with analysts and former officials from several European countries and NATO after the US elections. The experts, from Poland, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the NATO alliance, vary in their evaluation of the viability of Macron’s overview, however, they are adequate in a giant component that Europe can and cooperate more and spend more effective for defense.
The low direct appointments have been changed by duration and clarity.
President, Warsaw Security Forum
Speaking in Macron’s comments:
You will not have to forget that Macron’s vision is not actually a detail -oriented task. It is a concept that has been discussed in Europe and beyond two years, however, general control is that we do not build anything that is competitive for NATO. On the contrary, we create capacities, in specific defense capabilities, which would help and the European Pilar of Defense of NATO.
The concept that we would go alone without the United States rejected through almost all, if not all, the EU member states and NATO.
About expenses:
Poland is recently buying 80% of all its army movements in the United States. It is strongly based on US antimile defense systems. These are not things that can unravel or get rid of the night. Therefore, most countries, specifically the NATO eastern flank, will tell you that we will surely not pass without the United States. There is no way for France, and even less Germany, can accentuate the type of mandatory technological capacity to update Americans in the box here in Europe.
The discussion has evolved in the direction in which it has moved the elections prior to Trump: Europe will have to interfere with NATO, beginning to produce more, beginning to spend more, also with its own capabilities. We will also have to have a safe number of other defense elements that we obtain and create through ourselves, and this deserves to be understandable for our US partners, when I talked to the members of Congress in April, not everyone understood. It does not happen for Europeans to spend effective in European devices and not only for US or Korean devices.
In Ukraine:
Perhaps President Emmanuel Macron has had a concept since [American elections] that once he can delay the concept that European strategic autonomy is independent of the United States. But I repeat: countries that are at the forefront of this war [in Ukraine], for countries that will have to be the first battlefield of this war, which is the Eastern NATO flank, which is not negotiable.
We will have to do more and we will do more. I think that the transparent thing in the United States is that Europe already supplies 50% of the help of the army to Ukraine and 90% of monetary aid and refugees in Ukrinearray, so Accentu has already reached a giant degree.
You will have to take more place. We will have to have more troops. We will have to be in a position to protect ourselves, but to have the United States as an ally, not as a competitor, I think that is what is very vital to understand.
Former member of the United Kingdom Parliament and the Minister of State in the Middle East in the Office of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth, and the Minister of State for the Department of International Development.
In Macron’s comments:
We have known for some time that the United States, under some leadership, would ask Europeans to spend more for their defense, and what Trump’s election has made this catalyzed now. I think you have to do other people in the speech, and what Trump said about NATO in the hereafter and what other people have said about European defense sounds true. I think it is [Macron] what argues that in the end, it depends on us. You are an allegation or make the weather. And there is no explanation why we only travel and take the global because President Trump will verify to describe it. It will still be, surely, I am sure, for the sake of the West to act together, but we can no longer give that, and I think Macron is right to dominate him.
About expenses:
I saw that Macron’s speech presented the invitation to which they left at the EU doors to be a component of this broader European political network that the United Kingdom has obviously indicated that it intended to be a component. I think the United Kingdom has a role to play in this area. Obviously, our infantry men are a very vital component of NATO and will be at all times, however, I think it is very interested in the United Kingdom to act with the largest European community. This strengthens them, strengthens them and belongs to our own interests. At least we have begun to spend more in defense. Other states will have more up to date, however, I see it in the political and economic and economic interests of the United Kingdom to be active in relation to what Macron said.
In Ukraine:
All rhetoric has surely been correct, we cannot let Russia win. It has very concerned Baltic states, it has [countries] with Russian enclaves that can allow Putin to say that there are Russians here, therefore, we will protect their interests as we affirm in Ukraine. How would [these countries] feel if there was a sure feeling that Ukraine was not supported?
On the other hand, if you withdraw the economy and the army of the United States, what many of us ask us to catch up. I think that rhetoric is very, very clear, since everyone has said that we will be with Ukraine as long as necessary, and there can be no weakening. When you have an option to weaken, then you really give the game.
If there will be a type of advertising negotiation [for Ukraine], transparently [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy must be in the most powerful imaginable position. And to do this, you will have to be able to adopt these negotiations with the transparent determination of the rest of Europe behind it to say what happens, we will not drop it, but if that continues for two, four, five years, who knows?
I don’t think Europe can say more than what it says, and again, I think you have to make us talk.
Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Europe
In Macron’s comments:
Key this once and for all: there is an effective alliance of the army in Europe, a political alliance -armed in Europe, in the transatlantic region, and is called NATO. NATO has a control structure. It has a doctrine. He trains. It is used to move and army forces on a genuine scale. What is the point of seeking to create something in which we are 70 years old, 75 years of enjoying NATO? Now, of course, the challenge is that what is happening if the United States, under Trump, retires from NATO, which is unlikely or reduces your help for NATO, which is possible?
The solution to this, frankly, is not to start talking in new education courses under the European Union. It is to depend on NATO and start spending money. Why Trump and why is the maximum of the United States probably to pull a carpet under NATO, if they do? Because the French, the Germans, the British, the Spaniards, the Italians, simply did not increase their weight in terms of maximum defense expense of the 75 years of existence of NATO, or in fact, at least the last one, of made the last 30 years. So inclined in NATO and go to NATO and go to defense expenses.
About expenses:
However, there is something that the European Union can do, which are the defense industries. If you can download a control of European defense purchases to compensate for the existing dependence of Americans to standardize weapons. It is ridiculous that the British continue with their own production of the tank industry, while the rest of Europe buys Leopardo IIS, which is a perfectly deposit, by Rheinmetall [in Germany].
This will require a genuine political audacity, and require news and share sovereignty. This will require that individual nations such as Britain say, okay, we are going to make a deposit. We will buy the Leopard II.
In NATO:
If you start building a giant number of European districts [no -nate], they will have to come somewhere: a European command structure. What it means is that NATO will suffer. You know, I was the ideal attached commander of Europe, one of the many British who returns to Montgomery. The Germans have the staff leader. The president of the Army Committee is the Dutchman at this time, and turns commanders of joint force orders. Europe has a main role in NATO. Europeans have main papers in NATO. But everything is reduced to leaning and to produce the amount of troops, ships, airplanes, which NATO wants effective deterrence.
Former President, Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee (German Parliament)
In Macron’s comments:
I think that now is the European moment, a European moment, when we have to prepare this, the most likely, the United States, under Trump’s presidency, will avoid any monetary or army in Ukraine. But perhaps we will also see the attempt to conclude an agreement between Trump and Putin, which now means that European security will have to definitely become Europeans. So, or we get up or leave.
However, I believe that Europeans are not prepared, despite all the evidence he expects. Europeans are not prepared, so we have to catch up quickly. It is possible, and the political will is what is missing, however, we will have to act in a very pragmatic way.
In Ukraine:
We will have to act in a very pragmatic way to help temporarily and more substantially to Ukraine, and this means that we will have to compensate for US help in terms of weapons and delivery of ammunition and, in the short term, this would mean that Europeans have to buy weapons and ammunition in the foreign market, and in the medium and long term, we will have our capacities for greater coordination, to create larger markets so that our larger economies in the defense box.
Until now, there is not enough political will to do what is mandatory for Ukraine to allow Ukraine to protect Russian aggression. Otherwise, the army scenario on the battlefield would be different. We will see that the United States does not give a contribution as it has done in the past, so there is a lack of political will, and there is only one way to replace this course, and it is through doing more.
This would mean that all European Member States such as Poland, Germany and France are and invite other countries; For example, Great Britain, we have to go beyond the EU because it is the entire European security architecture, join. And when they meet, they deserve to make more extensive contributions with them in terms of cash and in terms of weapons and ammunition, and this deserves to be done in the short term. And then they deserve to expand a plan on how to make this structured effort and what is mandatory to make a greater coordinate, to the mandatory help for the defense of Ukraine. This will have to be done a lot in terms of cash and weapons. There is no mandatory word. What is mandatory are acts.
In NATO:
Of course, it is of European strategic interest in being a strong component of NATO, keeping Americans in Europe. He does not oppose anyone, however, it is only one of the contyines in a more powerful way towards what is in the center and in what is the center of NATO, and it is European security.
Director, Istituto Affari Intezionali, and former special advisor of the main EU representative for foreign affairs
In Macron’s comments:
He said it for a long time, and in a sense, the vision was at that time, and it is even more at this time. He began communicating about European strategic autonomy in 2017, and there was not much appetite and traction in the concept, since historically it was interpreted as anything that goes unlike the transatlantic relationship. Then, with the look, now with Trump, an intelligent concept that was intelligent at that time becomes politically applicable today.
From the general concept of the concept to action, there is a great gap, and has implemented any new concrete concept in this regard.
In general, what tends to take place is that Macron says something, everyone criticizes him, but no one gives a vision of choice. So God bless Macron so that at least they have an idea, and I think that in this specific case, it is even an intelligent idea, and I think that Donald Trump will galvanize an action, but I am a very skeptical action that will be inappropriate in relationship with what we have to do.
About expenses:
Basically we talk about one hundred billion euros consisting of the year (104 billion dollars) for several years throughout all member states that begin to spend between 2 and 4% of GDP. This will not take place during the night.
There is no antagonism between the EU and NATO, because, frankly speaking, as we are in the middle of a war, we cannot afford to have a type of educational conversations about the EU and NATO. What the EU can attend the regulatory and monetary incentives of supply to Europeans to do more in defense together.
However, there are many things there, and especially if some of those countries are starting or chasing more and more tasks collectively. If you are in France, Italy in Air Defense, of the Italian-German assignment in a new deposit, there are many things there.
Does this mean that Europeans would have all defense capabilities? Probably not, or not in the short term, so there is still a lot of dependence on the United States and the US defense.
It is not a consultation of being absolutely independent in its own defense industry, however, in fact, there is much more than the European defense industry can do and much more than what governments can do with this consolidation and cooperation within of the defense industry in Europe.