Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he is “a strong supporter of NATO” while meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday, even as President Donald Trump has criticized the alliance.
“I’ve been a strong supporter of NATO throughout my career in the Senate and even now,” Rubio said. “One of the advantages of being in NATO is that it allows us to have forces deployed in Europe in bases that allow us a logistical ability to project power in case of contingencies.”
Still, Rubio said, some NATO members such as Spain “denied” the U.S. the use of some military bases in the war against Iran.
“If one of the main reasons why the U.S. is in NATO is the ability to have forces deployed in Europe that we could project to other contingencies, and now that’s no longer the case, at least when it comes to some NATO members, that’s a problem, and it has to be examined,” Rubio said.
Trump has previously called NATO a “paper tiger,” and posted on social media last month that “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.”
Rubio said when it comes to the U.S. withdrawing from NATO, “that’s a decision for the President to make.”
