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Vice President JD Vance is leading the U.S. delegation to Europe's most prominent annual foreign policy gathering - the Munich Security Conference. It starts today and runs through Sunday. President Trump's initiative to jumpstart peace negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to dominate the discussions. Teri Schultz reports from Brussels.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrapped up two days of meetings at NATO headquarters by leaving allies with a new slogan that sounds slightly familiar.
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PETE HEGSETH: We must make NATO great again.
SCHULTZ: To do this, he said, European governments need to spend much more on their militaries - as much as 5% of GDP - and to beef up the alliance's collective capacity to produce weapons and, therefore, be less reliant on Washington.
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HEGSETH: This administration believes in alliances - deeply believes in alliances. But make no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.
SCHULTZ: But Europeans have their own complaints about the U.S., particularly regarding Trump's unilateral approach to starting peace talks on Ukraine, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin and offering to meet in person. Hegseth also asserted Europe alone would deploy troops to Ukraine to support any ceasefire. The problem there, says European Union Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas, is that the Trump administration hasn't discussed this with the Europeans and the Ukrainians.
KAJA KALLAS: Any quick fix is a dirty deal. Any agreement without us will fail because you need Europe and Ukraine to also implement the agreement. So without us at the table, you know, you can agree on whatever, but it will just simply fail.
SCHULTZ: German defense expert Christian Molling suggests Trump may be overplaying his hand with these moves toward Moscow, possibly alienating countries he wants to support the U.S. in its efforts to reduce China's influence.
CHRISTIAN MOLLING: In Europe, the anti-American and pro-China narrative has never been so interesting as it is right now. So if Trump is overdemanding and the political risk and costs are too high, it may just turn out that some of the Europeans say, oh, then we possibly go with the Chinese for one or the other aspect.
SCHULTZ: Molling calls this finding out the world is round - in other words, that everything's connected. He says the speeches of Vice President JD Vance and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference will both be watched very carefully by Europeans.
For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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