Trump challenge ‘an opportunity’ for us to find new partners, says Nato official Marcos Perestrello

Marcos Perestrello, President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said Tuesday (March 18), that the challenges posed by the Donald Trump administration of the US were an opportunity for the security alliance to become stronger and bridge the spending gap.

Perestrello was speaking alongside Latvia Foreign Minister Baiba Braze at Firstpost’s IdeasPod as part of the annual Raisina Dialogue organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Perestrello highlighted that when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2019, Europe suddenly discovered that they were overdependent on China. Drawing a comparison, he said the Trump challenge has led to the realisation among EU politicians that they are heavily dependent on US on strategic matters.

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He said it was an opportunity for Europe to become “more autonomous on strategic matters”.

He also called for increased defence spending among European nations and developing “new partnerships”.

“We need also to find new partnerships, new bridges of dialogue,” said Perestrello, hinting at strengthening relations between Europe and India.

“That is an opportunity to, to make, to strengthen the relations, for instance, between Europe and India,” he remarked.

“Challenge that we are facing with the new US administration approach as an opportunity to become stronger and more, and with the Alliance more, more, coherent and stronger,” he stated further.

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Can smaller European economies tackle the challenge?

When asked whether European nations with smaller economies can tackle the challenge of increasing defence spending, Perestrello said, “it was more expensive to fight a war than not to”.

“To keep peace we need strength,” he said.

He also highlighted that the main problem with European defence was not spending but “capacity building”.

He stressed the need to develop real capacities that actually serve the needs of European nations.

He argued that even though European nations increased spending in the last decade, but that “did not achieve stronger capacities”.

“So the decision that we need to make in the Hague next June is what capacities do we need?” he stated.