Norway's PM rejects Trump's NATO claims, calls for deeper European cooperation

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Monday forcefully rejected President Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States has “never gotten anything” from NATO, calling the claim flatly untrue and warning that collective security cannot be reduced to a transactional bargain.

“It rings completely false when the American president stands in Davos saying that we have given everything to NATO and NATO gives nothing in return. It is wrong. It’s plain wrong,” Store said at the Oslo Security Conference.

Stressing that the alliance is built on mutual benefit, Store said collective defence “is not a charity,” but rather a system grounded in shared self-interest.

He pointed to US tariff threats against allies and Washington’s push to take over Greenland as examples of how geopolitical pressure is increasingly being used as leverage — and as signs of a changing global order.

Deeper European cooperation

Against that backdrop, Store called for deeper European cooperation on security, defence and trade, alongside a sober reassessment of how Europe relates to the United States on defence.

“We will aim to spend wisely on defence, so it really fits into these regional plans. But then we will do more,” he said. “We will deepen our cooperation with the lead European partners strategically, with the United Kingdom. Don’t forget, friends, the EU is critical for our security.”

Store noted that while EU member states account for about 20 percent of NATO’s military capacity, the remaining 80 percent comes from non-EU allies such as the United States, Canada, Türkiye, the UK and Norway — underscoring the alliance’s interdependence even as Europe seeks greater strategic autonomy.