Longshot Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has hit out at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies for taking a “free ride” on the US, as he questioned the failure of Washington’s European allies to meet their funding commitments towards the Euro-atlantic alliance.
“Everyone loves a free lunch on Uncle Sam. But Uncle Sam has turned into an Uncle Sucker. I want Uncle Sam to stand for the interest of our citizens,” Ramaswamy said during an interaction at Rochester, New Haven on Wednesday.
“More than half the NATO countries don’t meet their NATO-level commitments,” the Indian-American former Biotech industry executive added.
He said that the US was being played into spending on Europe’s security by Ukraine as well as countries like Germany.
“[Ukrainina President Volodymyr] Zelensky and Germany are two sides of the same coin. The real problem is that we are being played,” Ramaswamy stated.
The remarks come against the backdrop of media reports suggesting that Germany won’t be going forward on making it legally binding to spend two percent of its budget on defense, as mandated by NATO guidelines.
According to NATO, Washington contributes nearly two-thirds of NATO’s budget.
In a statement posted on social media platform X, the US presidential hopeful highlighted that although Washington averaged 36 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of its NATO allies, it still ended up contributed 61 percent of the spending of its allies.
“Zelensky is trying to chain-gang us into war, but the fact is Europe needs to start paying for its own security,” Ramaswamy suggested, echoing concerns of former US president Donald Trump, who had
Trump reportedly revealed last year that he had even threatened to not defend NATO allies if the European nations didn’t step up their defence expenditure commitments to meet the two percent threshold.
NATO’s Expansion is US’ Top Mistake, Ramaswamy Says
Citing former US State Department official George Kennan, Ramaswamy said that the continuous expansion of NATO far beyond the borders of erstwhile East Germany since 1990 was the biggest “mistake” on part of western allies.
Kennan is described as the chief architect of US’ policy towards Moscow during the Cold War.
“NATO has expanded far more after the fall of the USSR than it did during the USSR when its purpose was to contain them,” Ramaswamy said.
He said that the US had been “offside” in implementing the Minsk Accords, which mandated a comprehensive ceasefire in Donetsk and Luhansk as well as mutual withdrawal of heavy weapons from the breakaway states.
Putin said last year that Minsk accords had ceased to exist with Moscow’s recognition of both the Donbass republics as independent states.
Ramaswamy also underlined that the US had fulfilled its obligations towards Kiev made at the time of 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
He accused the US and western allies of “arming Ukraine to the teeth” despite agreeing to going back the Minsk accords.
“We have been spending 10 times more than their annual GDP on just their defense. I mean the United States has been supplying there. That’s more than fulfilling our obligations under the Budapest memorandum,” he said.