WASHINGTON

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the US will not send its troops to Ukraine, which is now on the eve of the third anniversary of the Russia-led war.

"We are not sending US troops to Ukraine," Hegseth told reporters in Stuttgart, Germany, where he is visiting senior military leaders at US European Command and US Africa Command headquarters, as well as service members stationed in Germany.

His next stop will be Brussels, where he will attend a NATO defense ministers meeting and Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.

At his first NATO ministerial with allied counterparts, Hegseth will engage with NATO allies and partners to discuss the need to boost allied defense spending, increase European leadership, and expand defense industrial base capacity on both sides of the Atlantic.

"And with hopefully a rapid peace deal in Ukraine, which the President (Donald Trump) is committed to delivering, we can then review force posture and encourage as you're going to see tomorrow ... at the Ukraine contact group and the NATO ministerial, we're going to have straight talk with our friends," he said.

Turning to NATO countries' spending on defense, Hegseth said the US needs to spend "more" than it did under the Biden administration, which ended in January.

Asked whether he thinks that the US should spend 5% of its GDP on defense, he said: "At a minimum, we should not go below 3%."

About border security, Hegseth said "the biggest threat" is securing the border, "which we are addressing rapidly."

"You don't have a country if you don't have borders ... but as far as external threats, there's just no doubt the Communist Chinese ambitions are robust," he added.

Asked whether American forces in Europe will be cut and shifted to the Pacific with a focus on China, Hegseth said: "There are no plans right now in the making to cut anything."