US State Secretary, Marco Rubio has said that NATO needs to be “reimagined” in comments at a Senate Foreign Relation’s committee hearing.

This came in response to questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the committee’s top Democrat, who said that Trump’s foreign policy could leave the US standing alone.

Rubio downplayed concerns that the Trump administration is undermining the NATO alliance, but also repeated a long-standing complaint that NATO allies need to contribute more to defense spending.

Rubio said that past Presidents have had issues that NATO allies don’t contribute enough to defense. “I just think this President complains about it louder than other Presidents,” Rubio said

He said that NATO needed to change with European partners radically increasing their investment in defence capabilities to offer meaningful role, and not just an “irrelevant” deployment which still needs the US backstop attached to it.

“The reason why it has to be reimagined is not because its purpose is reimagined, its capabilities have to be reimagined.Let me give you as a point of example. There’s a lot of talk about security guarantees, and it’s something that there’s general agreement about now with the case of Ukraine.

“But those security guarantees basically involve the deployment of a handful of European troops, primarily French and UK, and then a US backstop. But in fact, the security guarantee is the US backstop.And I’m not diminishing the fact that some countries in Europe are willing to place troops in a post-war Ukraine. What I’m pointing out is that is irrelevant without the US backstop.”
Marco Rubio

He asserted that the reason why such a strong US backstop is needed is because “our allies and our partners have not invested enough in their own defence capabilities over the last 20 or 30 years.”

He expressed hope that the situation is going to change “and in some cases, and in some particular countries, it’s already changed.”

“But this is a fact that we cannot ignore. NATO is going to be stronger if our allies are more capable, especially, … and here’s the reality whether we want to accept it or not, we [the US] have interests all over the world. …And the stronger our partners are in NATO, the more flexibility the United States will have to secure our interests in different parts of the world. That’s not an abandonment of NATO, that is a reality of the 21st century, and the world is changing.”
Marco Rubio

Rubio Confident Of ‘Positive Resolution’ On Greenland

Rubio also spoke about the US administration’s interest in Greenland, stressing “we’re in a good place right now,” and that he hoped for a positive resolution with Denmark.

“We had excellent meetings with the Secretary General of NATO. In fact, even as I speak to you now, there’ll be some technical level meetings between us and our partners in Greenland and Denmark on this issue.”
Marco Rubio

Rubio stressed Greenland was a “longstanding” national security interest for the US, but he was confident “we are going to get something positive done.”

“We’re going to begin that process in a very professional, straightforward way. It begins today, and it’ll be a regular process.We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates, more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome. And I think we’re going to get there.”
Marco Rubio

Moreover, Rubio said an increasing military presence in the Middle East has been put in place “to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel” — a message that stands in contract to President Trump’s continuing threats to strike Iran if it does not yield to his demands.

Rubio told Congress in testimony that it’s wise and prudent to have a force posture within the region that could respond and “… if necessary, preemptively prevent the attack against thousands of American servicemen and other facilities in the region and our allies.”