WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday (Mar 31) that the United States “is going to have to re-examine” its relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) once the war against Iran has concluded.
“I think there’s no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to re-examine that relationship. We’re going to have to re-examine the value of NATO in that alliance for our country,” Rubio said to host Sean Hannity on Fox News.
He added that “ultimately” it would be a decision for President Donald Trump to make.
The top US diplomat said he had been “one of the strongest defenders of NATO” while he was in the US Senate because he “found great value in it”.
Much of that value was in having military bases in Europe that allowed the US military “to project power into different parts of the world”, Rubio said.
“If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases, that in fact we can no longer use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street,” he added.