SINGAPORE: The European Union’s diplomatic chief Kaja Kallas said Saturday the continent was beefing up defence spending after “tough love” from the Trump administration, as she called for stronger ties with the Asia-Pacific region.
Speaking at the Shangri-La defence forum in Singapore, Kallas was responding to comments by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called President Donald Trump’s insistence on more military spending “tough love”.
“It’s love nonetheless. So it’s better than no love,” Kallas quipped when asked later about Hegseth’s speech.
Trump consistently pressed NATO countries to increase defence spending, asking for as much as five percent of GDP and saying Washington will no longer tolerate freeloaders.
Kallas said “there are different countries in Europe and some of us have realised a long time ago that we need to invest in defence”.
“It is a good thing we are doing more, but what I want to stress is that the security of Europe and the security of the Pacific is very much interlinked,” she said.
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Kallas pointed to Ukraine, where North Korean soldiers were already operating and China was providing military hardware to Russia.
“There were some very strong messages in the US Secretary of Defense speech regarding China,” Kallas said.
“I think again, if you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” she said.
The EU wanted to build “partnerships in our mutual interest” in the Asia-Pacific, including in the field of defence.
“The European Union has shifted gear and reimagined our own paradigm as a peace project backed up with hard defence,” Kallas said.
“We are fast becoming a global security partner,” she said.
Speaking earlier, Hegseth told delegates “we’re pushing our allies in Europe to own more of their own security to invest in their defence”.
“Thanks to President Trump they are stepping up,” he said.
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