The US ambassador to Nato has said Ireland has \u201call the benefits\u201d of the military alliance but doesn\u2019t pay towards it.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Dublin, Matthew Whittaker said if Ireland did not invest in its own defence and security, it \u201cwill be taken advantage of\u201d \u2014 either by hostile states or hostile groups.<\/p>\n
Mr Whittaker, a lawyer and prominent supporter of US president Donald Trump, was speaking at an event in the US Embassy in Phoenix Park to mark the 250th US Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n
During a lengthy talk with security analyst and former Irish soldier Declan Walsh, Mr Whittaker also took a number of swipes at the EU \u2014 both its institutions and politicians.<\/p>\n
He accused European politicians of \u201cundermining\u201d the Nato alliance and US-EU relationships by criticising President Trump.<\/p>\n
He said this was a \u201cpopular\u201d thing to do in Europe and that European politicians were playing to their domestic audiences.<\/p>\n
Mr Whitaker did not comment on the impact of statements and social media posts from, and behaviour of, President Trump on Nato allies or EU member states.<\/p>\n
There was no reference either to the impact of threats from President Trump to take Greenland from EU and Nato member Denmark.<\/p>\n
He criticised the EU\u2019s attempts to regulate social media giants, saying this breached the US\u2019s understanding of \u201cfree speech\u201d, and complained this was being done because \u201cdelicate little ears can\u2019t handle\u201d robust dialogue.<\/p>\n
Mr Whittaker described the EU as \u201cpretty insidious\u201d and said EU officials wanted to \u201ccontrol everything\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the EU\u2019s regulation of plastic caps on bottles \u201cencapsulates\u201d what was wrong with the union.<\/p>\n
In relation to neutral European countries, like Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria, he said they have \u201call the benefits\u201d of the Nato alliance but none of the deficits, as in they \u201cdon\u2019t have to contribute\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he recognised Ireland contributed to international peacekeeping and said he witnessed it in Kosovo with KFOR, a Nato-led mission operating under a UN mandate.<\/p>\n
But he said in the current security environment, \u201cif you are not investing in your own defence and security you are inviting vulnerabilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US has repeatedly called on Nato countries to increase their defence spend to 5% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Ireland, which is a partner, but not a member, of Nato, has the lowest spend in the EU, at about 0.2% GDP or 0.3% GNI (excluding multinational profits).<\/p>\n
The average spend in the EU in 2025 is 2.1% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Mr Whittaker said Ireland was a \u201ccritical\u201d country in the global economy and \u201ccertainly\u201d with the US, and said communication infrastructure and undersea cables \u201chas to be protected and defended\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf you are weak and vulnerable you will be taken advantage of. It could be a state actor, it could be a non-state actor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He warned threats \u201cdon\u2019t wait for you to be ready\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ambassador said despite the political divisions between Nato members, the military relationship between members \u201ccould never be stronger\u201d and that, if need be, they could \u201cfight tonight\u201d together.<\/p>\n
But he said it was now for European countries to lead the defence of Europe and increase their expenditure \u2014 something he said Germany, the Baltic states, Poland and Romania were leading on.<\/p>\n
He said he spent a lot of his time \u201ccalming everyone down\u201d in Europe about this and added it could be a 10-year project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US ambassador to Nato has said Ireland has \u201call the benefits\u201d of the military alliance but doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1111,61,60,43,1112],"class_list":["post-514873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-court-and-crime","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}