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Bragging About Sending Aid to Cuba – HotAir

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April 2, 2026
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Bragging About Sending Aid to Cuba – HotAir

Do European leaders WANT Donald Trump to leave NATO? 

It sure seems that way. After weeks of mounting tensions between the Trump administration and European countries, the European Commission—the technocrats who actually run the EU behind the ineffectual European Parliament—just posted a Xweet about how they are standing with Cuba at this difficult time. 





The message is obviously not meant for the Cuban people, given that they barely have enough power to keep the lights on for a few hours a day. It was meant for Donald Trump.

Obviously. It’s not like they are announcing anything new. The European Union is and has been Cuba’s largest trading partner, and the EU sends a few million dollars of aid every now and then. 

This was giving Donald Trump the finger because they are butthurt. 

Tensions have been mounting, with European countries bragging that they were ready to fight US troops over Greenland (Trump was never going to invade, and they knew that), and with some of our European allies denying the US the right to use bases in their countries, or in some cases, traverse their airspace. 

American soldiers have died in the hundreds of thousands to defend Europe, and the US has spent trillions of dollars on their behalf. Trillions. And, since the end of the Cold War, these countries have essentially freeloaded off the goodwill of the American people, failing to meet their treaty obligations for DECADES. 





Now they are angry that Trump wants them to do what they promised and failed to do for so long, and they are offended. So offended that, rather than trying to find common ground, they are poking an angry bear. 

So many longtime NATO supporters saying the same thing right now. I helped bring Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic into NATO. But denying us basing and overflight is inexcusable, as is their failure to help with Strait of Hormuz. No one asking them to bomb Iran, just let us use our bases and help escort ships. If they can’t do that, NATO has no purpose.

Let’s be real here. Europe has spent decades freeloading on American security. Even now, with every NATO member finally hitting the 2% GDP target in 2025.

But beyond the financial contributions, the real rupture is philosophical and the Iran crisis has shown a spotlight on it.

Europe worships process. Endless committees, consultations, and “predictability.” Macron actually calls it a virtue. For Trump, this is paralysis as his style is to articulate a threat, fix a target, and act. The Americans are men of conviction and purpose. Europe on the other hand lives by bureaucratic liturgy and in high-minded abstractions. 

Sure, Americans might make mistakes when acting. But Europe never considers what the costs of not acting actually are. 

Just look at how their nations are doing on various fronts, especially on the border crisis, and you see the same cancerous rot that undergirds their foreign policy approach play out domestically. It’s the same problem on a different scale.

Iran is currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, choking 20% of global oil and spiking prices past $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, the regime is bleeding from strikes, its nuclear ambitions are still alive despite degraded capability, and its proxies are firing missiles at allies and oil tankers. If this isn’t a clear and present danger to the global economy – of which Europe is a part – then I don’t know what is.

Yet when Washington asked to use European bases to finish the job – bases the US has defended for generations, the response was hesitation and hand-wringing. The US did strike from RAF Fairford, but only after warnings that British soil could become a “legitimate target.” 

If you cannot agree that a theocratic regime with eschatological ambitions who have shown no restraint in hitting out at Gulf countries and threatening the world’s energy jugular is an enemy worth confronting, then what, exactly, are we allies about?

Europe loves to preen about being tough on Russia. They issue condemnations and speeches and slap sanctions that hardly work to cripple the Russian economy. 

Now here was a chance to do something concrete: let the Americans use the bases they already pay for, help clear the Strait, and actually degrade the Iranian war machine that arms Moscow’s proxies. Turmp didn’t ask for boots on the ground or any kind of more offensive action. All he wanted was permission to operate from the infrastructure America has underwritten for decades.

They couldn’t even manage that.

So can you blame the Americans for seeing NATO for what it is? A paper-tiger alliance that expects Washington to bleed and pay while Brussels and London convenes and deliberates.





I have been struck by how many NATO boosters are disgusted by what the Europeans have done to stick it to Trump. Many of them agree that Trump has been a jerk to his European allies, although mostly by being undiplomatic in saying what is true. Trump acted as a bully rather than a cajoler. 

Yet cajoling didn’t work. Presidents, going back to even Bill Clinton, have asked Europe to step up in its own defense. We negotiated very easy spending targets, far lower than our own baseline, and they failed to meet them. Germany now trains soldiers with broomsticks instead of guns at times. They barely have a working air force. Spain includes spending on GREEN ENERGY as a defense expenditure, because they are saving the Earth or something. Britain once had the greatest navy in the world. 

It has 12 major surface combatants now. Most of them in port. 

HOLY SMOKES. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte just dropped MAJOR TRUTH NUKES on Europe, siding with Trump and saying they NEED America to survive

“If anyone thinks here that the European Union or Europe can defend itself without the US, KEEP ON DREAMING! YOU CAN’T! We can’t!”

“Europe — if you REALLY want to go it alone, and those of you who are planning for that, FORGET that you can ever get there with 5% [GDP for defense spending]. It will be 10%! You have to build up your own nuclear capability!”

“That costs billions and billions of euros. You will lose them. In that scenario, you would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella. So, hey, good luck!” 





Mark Rutte is right. It doesn’t matter if Trump is a jerk. Europe needs NATO, and Trump is a jerk because they have been jerking us around and trying to bully us with EU regulations for years. 

The EU actively campaigned against Donald Trump and tried to silence him on US soil by censoring X. They threatened billions of dollars in fines if Elon Musk interviewed Donald Trump. They regularly silence American speech through bullying social media companies into deplatforming users. They threaten US companies. And they subvert our foreign policies. 

Apparently, Europe only likes working with the US when they rule the roost. 

It doesn’t work that way. He who pays the piper chooses the tune. They are in the FA stage. They could soon FO. 


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