‘America will continue to lead’, US Vice President Harris tells Europeans

The United States will continue to lead on global security, US Vice-President Kamala Harris said in Munich on Friday (16 February), clearly distancing herself from former US President Donald Trump’s NATO statements.

“Isolation is not protection,” Harris told the Munich Security Conference in a room packaged with European leaders and security officials.

Her comments came as a direct riposte of Trump, who seeks another term and has spooked the US’ European allies with remarks that, if he returns to office, he would no longer grant protection to NATO partners who aren’t spending enough on defence.

Such a move would weaken America and undermine global stability and prosperity, Harris said, without mentioning Trump by name.

In current geopolitically challenging times, it is clear that America cannot retreat. “And America will continue to lead,” Harris said.

Harris said NATO was founded on a simple premise that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

All NATO members have always kept this promise, even after the terrorist attack on the USA on 11 September 2001, she recalled.

Harris assured the European partners that nothing would change in the US government’s policy, at least not under a second term of incumbent President Joe Biden.

“To jeopardise all of this would be foolish,” she said.

At the same time, Harris warned US Republicans in the House of Representatives that to reject billions in military aid for Ukraine “would just be a gift to Putin”.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]