{"id":10651,"date":"2026-08-13T22:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10651\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:57:08","slug":"trumps-u-s-ambassador-to-nato-speaks-in-davenport-political-news-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10651\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s U.S. Ambassador to NATO speaks in Davenport | Political News Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVENPORT \u2014 During a visit to Davenport on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker described President Donald Trump\u2019s pressure on European allies to increase defense spending as “probably the biggest foreign policy victory of this second administration.”<\/p>\n

\"081326-qc-nws-whitaker002\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker talks Aug. 13, 2026, during an America First Policy Institute event in Davenport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarah Watson\/Quad-City Times<\/p>\n

Whitaker, 56, is from Iowa. He graduated from Ankeny High School, played football for the Iowa Hawkeyes, graduated from law school, served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, and ran for statewide political office in Iowa as a Republican before being tapped by Trump for positions including acting attorney general in Trump’s first term and his current role as U.S. ambassador to NATO in Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Whitaker spoke at an event hosted by the America First Policy Institute at the Machine Shed in Davenport. He answered questions alongside U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NATO is a military and political alliance of 32 countries formed after World War II in an effort to deter another world war in Europe and to counter the threat of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

At the start of his second term, Trump demanded allies that are a part of NATO increase defense spending to 5% of their gross national product by 2035, as the president has railed against NATO countries as not paying their fair share to build up their militaries and defend themselves.<\/p>\n

Some countries are stepping up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

European countries and Canada have increased spending by $90 billion over the previous year, adjusted for inflation,\u00a0according to the NATO secretary general<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Greece are projected to reach the target of 5% this year, and Denmark and Norway are not far behind. Germany has also increased its military spending, Whitaker said. In 2025, the U.S. spent about $980 billion on defense and Europe and Canada spent about $657 billion combined in equivalent U.S. dollars, according to NATO’s annual report<\/a>. The U.S. spent about 3.19% of its GDP on defense in 2025 and Europe and Canada averaged 2.33%.<\/p>\n

“With President Trump’s leadership, we have taken the burden off the American taxpayer, off the Iowa plumber, Iowa farmer, people that are working hard every single day, and now Europe pays for European security and not the American(s),” Whitaker said. “… That’s a huge victory that only President Trump could deliver, and it’s probably the biggest foreign policy victory of this second administration.”<\/p>\n

When Trump came to office, Whitaker said, he was adamant that the expectation for NATO countries at the time, 2%, was not enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You can imagine when I showed up in Brussels and delivered that message, the look on these Europeans’ faces was priceless,” Whitaker said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Whitaker said they were convinced to commit to more investments and that has meant more purchases from American defense companies.<\/p>\n

“There is no going back,” Whitaker said. \u201cIt is now the policy of the United States. We are pressing as hard as we can to make sure that our European allies start carrying this burden and they’re having to spend the money in the United States because we’ve got the best stuff.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whitaker said he wanted to return to Iowa because he wanted to tell the story of Trump’s policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAVENPORT \u2014 During a visit to Davenport on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker described President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,57,1323,47,198,3497,7,1301,1320,49],"class_list":["post-10651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-trump-controversies","tag-europe","tag-international-relations","tag-matthew-whitaker","tag-nato","tag-presidencies-of-donald-trump","tag-trump-administration-controversies","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}