ISTANBUL

The US national security adviser said Tuesday that the US can no longer afford to financially support its NATO allies and that Europe should lead Ukraine’s defense.

“We’ve made it clear that assistance to Ukraine going forward in the future must be European-led,” Mike Waltz told The New York Post.

Waltz added that the Trump administration would support Europe both militarily and diplomatically, but stressed that it would also be “demanding at every level.”

He noted that in 2014, most NATO members failed to meet the then-minimum defense budget of 2%, adding: “What also happened in 2014? The first invasion of Ukraine, the taking of Crimea.”

He said: “That should have been a wake-up call to get everybody to 100% (of the) bare minimum.”

Waltz criticized NATO’s continued shortcomings amid the Russia-Ukraine war, saying that it's “really astounding that now, with the largest land war in Europe since World War II,” NATO nations are still falling short.

“We still have a good ways to go, and we’re going to continue to demand that our allies pay their … fair share, that they share this burden,” Waltz said.

“The United States, with $33 trillion in debt, can literally no longer afford to subsidize European security – and we have to make the distinction between our Eastern European allies like Poland, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and others,” he added, naming countries bordering Russia.

Waltz said countries like Spain, Canada, and Italy are falling short in sharing the burden and so the US will keep pushing allies to pay their share.

The US has been urging its NATO allies to raise defense spending to 5% of their respective GDPs.