The head of the Pentagon in Brussels, the Europeans under pressure

The US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is expected on Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels, where he plans to accentuate the United States pressure on the European allies, on the occasion of his first visit to the NATO headquarters.

The European countries of the Alliance, for their part, are the indications on American engagement in Europe, and alongside Ukraine, after a series of thunderous statements by President Donald Trump.

Europeans also fear that a possible peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, that Donald Trump promised to obtain as quickly as possible, is done without them and to the detriment of kyiv.

Wednesday, Pete Hegseth will participate in a meeting of the contact group which coordinated military support for Ukraine, since the Russian invasion of this country almost three years ago.

As at NATO on Thursday, he had to call on Europeans to increase their « leadership »according to the Pentagon.

Some are ready there, such as France or the United Kingdom, including with the sending of troops to Ukraine to guarantee a possible peace agreement, according to a NATO diplomat. These countries hope that the United States will stay by its side and will pressure Russia to come to the negotiating table, said the diplomatic source.

Europeans and Americans will gauge themselves during this first contact at NATO, which will be followed by the displacement of the American vice-president JD Vance in Munich, Germany, where he will meet on Friday the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the conference on security.

European NATO countries do not expect to be detailed by a possible American plan on Ukraine. “I don’t think Hegseth is very specific” On the subject, said an alliance diplomat.

Become again “Russians”

Donald Trump strengthened the disorder in Europe by evoking on Monday the possibility of seeing the Ukrainians become again “Russians”.

“They could arrive at an agreement, they may not reach an agreement. They could be Russian one day, as they might not be Russian one day ”he said.

Only certainty, according to another diplomat in Brussels, the United States will put a « pression maximum » on Europeans to share more ” burden “ Military spending on the Atlantic Alliance.

The American billionaire set the bar very high by claiming European allies that they double, at least, their military spending.

“The European continent deserves to be safe from all assaults, but it is the neighboring countries (from Russia, editor’s note) that should invest the most in this individual and collective defense”The new US Defense Minister warned on Tuesday after a visit to the American troops in Stuttgart, Germany.

For the new American president, NATO countries must devote 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to these expenses, when there are only 23 to spend 2% of their weapons GDP.

But for most European allies, with the exception of Poland, the « marche » is too high, according to a NATO diplomat, even if most of them do not dispute the need to spend more.

The secretary general of the Alliance Mark Rutte has repeatedly recalled it. “We will decide on the exact number in the course of the year, but it will be considerably more than 2%”he reaffirmed on January 23 at the Davos Forum.

The 3.5% figure is regularly mentioned, but no decision has been made, and should not be before, at best, the next NATO summit in June in The Hague.

In the meantime, Mark Rutte should, according to diplomats, underline the efforts already made by the European allies. It is expected to announce a new list of countries that have already reached 2%, objective set in 2014, and highlight the 20% increase last year of military spending from the Outstands outside the United States and Canada, these diplomats explained.

And on Ukraine, some countries, including Great Britain, should announce the sending of new weapons, according to these sources.