France pushes back after Rutte says Europe can't defend itself without US

LONDON

Europeans can and "must take" charge of their own security, the French foreign minister said late Monday in response to remarks by the NATO chief that Europe cannot defend itself without the US.

"No, dear Mark Rutte. Europeans can and must take charge of their own security," Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on US social media company X.

"Even the United States agrees. It is the European pillar of NATO," he added.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had said Europe cannot defend itself without the support of the US.

"If anyone thinks here, again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can't. We can't. We need each other," Rutte said in his address at the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Security and Defense in Brussels on Monday.

There will be "a lot of duplication," he said, referring to the idea of European Defense Force. "I wish you luck if you want to do it."

"Because you have to find the men and women in uniform, it will be on top of what is happening already, and it will make things more complicated."

The US under President Donald Trump's administration has time and again called on European allies to take a much greater responsibility for their own defense.

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, is being increasingly known as "the Trump whisperer." He has lavished praise on Trump even as others have confronted him.

He averted the latest standoff between the US and Europe after a meeting with the American leader, who agreed on a "framework" for a future deal on Greenland, backing off from threats to impose tariffs on countries that opposed takeover of the Danish territory.