Background Press Call Previewing the NATO Summit

MODERATOR:  Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today for our NSC background call to preview the NATO Summit. 

As a reminder of the ground rules, this call is being held on background with the contents attributable to a senior administration official.

For your awareness, but not for your reporting, our speaker today is _________________ [senior administration official].

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MODERATOR: 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thank you. 

 We have time for a couple more. 

We’ll go to Ed Wong 

with 

the New York Times

Q Hi, thank you. I have two questions. 

1.  One is: Obviously, a lot of NATO leaders are worried about the prospect of a Trump presidency. We know what he said about cutting off aid to Ukraine as well as withdrawing the U.S. from NATO. What will you do in this summit, in terms of actions, to try and reassure the NATO Allies?

1. The second thing is: You’re obviously having a meeting with the eight leaders of the Asia Pacific nations. NATO has been more forceful in its language on China in some of its recent statements. But what actions — concrete actions — will we take coming out of the summit on China, especially given the recent emphasis on the Russia-China nexus where China is helping rebuild Russia’s defense industrial base, in your assessment? Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: 

All right, Ed. 

Well, one of the benefits of my job is I don’t do politics, so I’m going to leave that aside.

What I will say, while I have the mic, is that we have NATO Allies that are fully committed to the Alliance. 

 As I pointed out at the top, in my opening remarks, we’ve gone from having nine Allies spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, at the start of this administration, to 23 spending 2 percent of GDP on defense today. That direction of travel is significant.
And just since — to put a dollar figure on it — just since 2020, NATO collectively has spent an additional $180 billion, so — on a yearly basis.
So, look, I think there’s a lot that’s going on. 

• On your — that is positive, that shows positive trajectory for the Alliance, also reassurance for our eastern flank allies in terms of the capabilities that we’re positioning in the east.

On the Indo-Pacific element of your question, 

• I will say that the draft communiqué text on the PRC I think is very solid. 
• You’ll see that when it’s unveiled.

And of course, we’ve got the North Atlantic Council meeting with the EU and Indo-Pacific partners, which will also take up this critical issue, which you rightly pointed to, of the PRC’s support for the Russian defense industrial base, with something like 

• 90 percent of Russia’s semiconductors coming from the PRC; 
• 70 percent of its nitrocellulose, which is used for propellants — and 
• a lot of it’s optics, machine tools, et cetera — all of this not only fueling Russia’s war against Ukraine but also creating a long-term challenge for European security that, obviously, our Allies recognize. 
•  And so we will have, I think, strong language on this to address.

But also, I will say that we’ve got some new projects that we’re going to be talking about at the summit with our Indo-Pacific partners on resilience. 

• resilience in the region; 
• supporting Ukraine, as I mentioned; 
• countering disinformation; 
• cyber; and then also on tech cooperation, emerging technologies.

So, yeah, I’ll leave it at that. . . .

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