An email has circulated within the United States Department of Defense laying out potential measures Washington could take against NATO allies it believes have not sufficiently supported its war on Iran, such as Spain and the United Kingdom, according to a US official quoted by the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
The internal email considers options such as suspending Spain from NATO and re-evaluating Washington\u2019s stance on the British Falkland Islands, which are also claimed by Argentina, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The email, which alleges \u201ca sense of entitlement on the part of the Europeans\u201d, is intended as a signal to NATO partners, according to the official.<\/p>\n
Suspending Spain from the bloc would carry symbolic weight with little operational consequence to the US military, the email says.<\/p>\n
Asked about the missive while at an EU leaders\u2019 meeting in Cyprus on Friday, Spanish \u2060\u2060Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Madrid is a \u201creliable member\u201d of NATO that meets all its obligations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am absolutely not worried,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do not work with emails. We work with official documents and positions taken, in this case, by the government of the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe position of the government of Spain is clear: Absolute collaboration with the allies, but always within the framework of international legality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, also attending the Cyprus meeting, said NATO \u201cmust remain united\u201d.<\/p>\n
A German government spokesperson said Spain\u2019s membership in the military alliance was not in question.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain is a member \u2060of NATO. And \u2060I see \u2060no reason why that should change,\u201d said the spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hit back, saying the UK\u2019s position on the Falkland Islands is \u201cunchanged\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSovereignty rests with the UK, and the islands\u2019 \u200cright to self-determination is paramount. It\u2019s been our consistent position and will remain the case,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The UK and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 over \u2060the islands after Argentina made a failed bid to take them. Some 650 Argentinian and \u2060255 British service personnel died before Argentina \u2060surrendered.<\/p>\n
Asked if Starmer thought the email was an attempt by the US to put pressure on him to join the Iran war, the spokesperson said: \u201cPressure does not affect him, and he \u200cwill \u200calways act in the national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reported Pentagon email relayed Washington\u2019s frustrations, saying basing and overflight rights should be \u201cjust the absolute baseline for NATO\u201d, according to the US official quoted by Reuters.<\/p>\n
Trump has also urged NATO countries to deploy their navies to help force open the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely shut off to global shipping for two months. He has called NATO countries \u201ccowards\u201d for not sending their forces, and said the 77-year-old military alliance is a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d without the US.<\/p>\n
\u2018Time of free-riding is over\u2019
\nEuropean-US tensions grew further on Friday, when US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, commenting on the Strait of Hormuz at a news conference, said, \u201cthe time for free-riding is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal and who understand that being an ally is not a one-way street. It\u2019s a two-way street,\u201d said Hegseth. \u201cWe are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and [they] might want to do less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe, and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An email has circulated within the United States Department of Defense laying out potential measures Washington could take against NATO allies it believes have not sufficiently supported its war on Iran, such as Spain and the United Kingdom, according to a US official quoted by the Reuters news agency. The internal email considers options such as suspending Spain from NATO and re-evaluating Washington\u2019s stance on the British Falkland Islands, which are also claimed by Argentina, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The email, which alleges \u201ca sense of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24421,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24420\/revisions\/24421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}