US President Joe Biden met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday for the sixth time in seven months, as the “Worldreported. The approximately one-hour meeting took place before Biden’s onward journey to the NATO summit in Vilnius. The focus of the summit is the alliance’s unity in the face of the war in Ukraine triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The war in Ukraine exposed NATO’s weaknesses. Without US military support, Ukraine would likely have already lost the battle against Russia, jeopardizing the security of all of Europe. According to media reports, there is now increasing impatience in the USA with the Europeans, especially with Germany.

Germany needs a long-term defense budget increase in order to be able to meet the NATO target

“We don’t understand why the implementation of the turning point is going so slowly. Berlin also doesn’t seem to be taking the two percent target seriously,” said a high-ranking official in the US Congress, who wished to remain anonymous, to “Welt”.

Although Berlin has announced that from 2024 it will spend two percent of gross domestic product on defense for the first time in decades, this will only succeed with a special fund of 100 billion euros. This money is expected to be used up in 2027. By then at the latest, the defense budget would have to be increased by 30 billion euros in order to be able to meet the two percent target.

USA: “We want close cooperation with Germany”

In addition to European security issues, the US is increasingly showing a strong interest in the Indo-Pacific, particularly with regard to China and the stability of the region. The US sees itself in the necessary position to take a strong stand against President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party in order to avoid an escalation with Taiwan. It’s about the “resilience and security of our supply chains,” as Jake Sullivan, the US President’s National Security Advisor, recently put it in a White House briefing.

So far, the NATO alliance has only partially met US expectations. It still defines itself as a regional alliance, but is influenced by security policy developments in other parts of the world, particularly in China. Therefore, the Alliance strives to prepare for possible conflict situations in the Indo-Pacific region, which could also affect European territory. For this reason, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand will also take part in the meeting in Vilnius.

Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton, a member of the China Committee in the House of Representatives, stressed to the “world” that Germany could play an important role in developing a future economic deterrence strategy. “We would like to work closely with Germany,” he said. “Both sides recognize the risks of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific and what needs to be done economically to avoid it.”