LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Top officials from the Trump administration are in Europe this week.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
They're there for talks their counterparts hope will shed light on U.S. policy on Ukraine, commitment to NATO and other transatlantic issues.
FADEL: Teri Schultz reports from Brussels, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meets allies today. Good morning, Teri.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So just walk us through who's going where and why.
SCHULTZ: Yeah, it's a busy week in transatlantic relations. And just to start off, Leila, I have to note that as his officials were on the way to Europe, President Trump went ahead with announcing 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. So Europeans may have been smiling through gritted teeth as they welcomed their American counterparts here. But in sum, the travel plans look like this - Vice President JD Vance spoke yesterday at an international summit on artificial intelligence in Paris. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is here at NATO today to join a meeting of some 50 countries that support Ukraine, after he met U.S. troops in Germany yesterday. And Friday, Vance will be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and members of Congress for the biggest annual foreign policy gathering in Europe - the Munich Security Conference.
FADEL: OK. So quite a lineup there, Teri. What are their main messages for the European partners?
SCHULTZ: Well, it ranges, obviously, based on the venue and the audience. In Paris, with leaders from Europe and Asia in attendance, Vice President Vance asserted Washington will be dominant in crucial ways, including production of the all-important microchips. He warned Europe it should drop its focus on regulation, which has meant investigations into American companies - including Elon Musk's X platform - and has meant fines on some of them, such as Google, which Trump has blasted publicly as unfair. While he was in Germany, Hegseth gave a preview of what he'll say at NATO.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETE HEGSETH: This kind of urgency of this moment requires friends talking to friends about capabilities, about leadership, about stepping up, about burden sharing. But it ought be those in the neighborhood investing the most in that collective - individual and collective defense.
FADEL: OK. So what will NATO allies hear and take away from remarks like that?
SCHULTZ: Well, first off, I'm sure they're relieved he describes this as friends talking to friends. And I'm not even joking. Europeans are so on edge here, wondering if Trump's well-known animosity toward NATO in his first term will carry over. Added to that now, remember, are these Trump threats against two NATO allies - that he may seize Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, and that he wants Canada to become the 51st state. Diplomats tell me those issues are not expected to be raised here, in part because they're so inflammatory and no one wants to torpedo this first meeting.
So, back to Hegseth's remark on burden sharing, this is exactly what Europeans are expecting to hear. They'll explain that they are increasing their investment - 23 of 32 countries now spend 2% of their GDP on defense. That's NATO's old target. They're expecting Hegseth to repeat Trump's new demand that this be raised to 5%.
FADEL: And what about concerns that the U.S. will pull out military support from Europe?
SCHULTZ: That's particularly important for those countries along the front line of the war in Ukraine, but Hegseth was also fairly reassuring about that yesterday. Let's have a listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HEGSETH: We would be remiss in not reviewing forced posture everywhere. But it would be the wrong planning assumption to say, oh, America's abandoning something or America's leaving.
SCHULTZ: Now, that doesn't mean there won't be decisions to move some U.S. troops, but he seems to be trying to tamp down fears of anything abrupt. If these are the kind of things he repeats at NATO over the next two days, allies will be relieved. And the fact that he's attending this Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting today is also reassuring. They'd be happy to see Hegseth lead the group, which was set up by his predecessor, Lloyd Austin, but they weren't sure if he'd even come. So I think they'll be considering this a good start.
FADEL: OK. Teri Schultz in Brussels. Thank you, Teri.
SCHULTZ: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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