Allies of the United States are responding to an internal Pentagon email that allegedly floated several ideas for punishing uncooperative members of NATO.
Top Pentagon policy adviser Elbridge Colby allegedly wrote in an email that compliance with U.S. requests to access foreign bases is “just the absolute baseline for NATO” — a standard that multiple members do not meet.
“As President Trump has said, despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us,” Department of War press secretary Kingsley Wilson told the Washington Examiner.
He continued, “The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part.”
The email, first reported by Reuters, allegedly furnished several options for dealing with “difficult” countries and “decreasing the sense of entitlement on the part of the Europeans” — such as suspending Spain from the alliance and questioning the United Kingdom’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
Wilson told the Washington Examiner that the Pentagon has “no further comment on any internal deliberations” when asked about the alleged memo.
The U.K. was among the first NATO allies to speak up following reports of the memo.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson issued a statement declaring that 10 Downing Street’s position on the Falkland Islands is “clear and isn’t going to change.”
The islands, a British territory off the coast of Argentina, are claimed and widely recognized as belonging to the British Crown. The U.K. fought a war in 1982 to expel invading Argentinians seeking to claim the islands.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, a major ally of President Donald Trump, warned in a speech earlier this month that though the U.K. resecured control over the islands through the war, its victory “did not alter the legal nature of this dispute, which continues to be recognized by the United Nations as a special and particular colonial situation.”
“The Falkland Islands have hugely voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory, and we’ve always stood behind the islanders’ right to self-determination and the fact that sovereignty rests with the UK,” the spokesperson said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a devout socialist and one of the most vocal opponents of the Pentagon’s Operation Epic Fury in Iran, brushed off the threat of being removed from the alliance.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the European Union leaders’ summit in Cyprus on Friday, the prime minister said he is “absolutely not worried” because “Spain is a reliable member of NATO.”
“We do not work off emails. We work off official documents and government positions, in this case, of the United States,” Sanchez told the reporters. “The Spanish government’s position is clear — absolute cooperation with the allies, but always within the framework of international legality.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said leaders must “work to strengthen NATO’s European pillar” and “complement the American one” so the alliance can “remain united.”
The Italian premier recently had a high-profile falling-out with Trump over the president’s comments degrading Pope Leo XIV.
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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Financial Times on Friday that he questions whether the United States is ready to be as loyal as it is described in [Nato] treaties.”
“Washington treats Poland as the best and the closest ally in Europe,” he clarified, but said he is sometimes “pessimistic” about whether the alliance’s mutual defense clause is “still valid.”