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Marco Rubio (M), Secretary of State of the United States of America, takes part in the working session of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting. Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa
Keystone
According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the transatlantic dispute over the Iran war will be a topic at the NATO summit in July.
US President Donald Trump's disappointment with some of the Nato allies and their reaction to the operations in the Middle East is well documented, he said at a meeting of foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden.
This was something that needed to be discussed at the level of heads of state and government.
On his departure for the meeting, Rubio cited the refusal of countries such as Spain to allow the use of bases for the war against Iran as one reason for Trump's anger.
He explained that US membership of an alliance must have a value for the USA and that the bases in Europe are a key value for NATO. These enabled the USA to exercise military power in the event of a crisis in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Like NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte before him, Rubio made it clear that Trump's decision to deploy an additional 5,000 US troops to Poland should not be understood as a change of course on plans to reduce the commitment to the conventional defense of Europe.
The United States has global obligations that it must fulfill with regard to its troop deployment, he explained. This forces the US to constantly reassess where troops are stationed. However, he said that this was not a punitive measure.
Following critical comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CSU), the USA recently announced the withdrawal of around 5,000 soldiers from Europe and decided not to implement plans to station medium-range weapons in Germany for the time being.
22.05.2026, 12:12
