U.S. Diplomats Press NATO Allies to Use Defense Budgets to Replace Foreign Telecommunications Equipment
According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the Trump administration has urged NATO allies to redirect defense spending toward replacing components from non-allied countries within their networks and critical infrastructure.
Washington has long regarded competitors’ suppliers as a national security challenge and has already excluded them from U.S. networks. U.S. government officials have called on NATO allies to follow suit.
According to informed sources, Yang En, Coordinator for China Affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of State, told officials in Brussels in May that they should utilize defense-related funds under NATO’s expenditure benchmarks to dismantle equipment and replace it with products from other suppliers.
One source said Yang did not explicitly name any ally, but his remarks clearly targeted Germany. Another person familiar with the meeting noted that the lower-ranking U.S. diplomat’s comments did not elicit an immediate response from allies, who are aware of the contradictory actions often taken by U.S. government officials. The U.S. State Department declined to comment.
In 2025, nearly all NATO allies agreed to raise core defense spending to 3.5% of their gross domestic product (GDP), with an additional 1.5% allocated to defense-related expenditures such as critical infrastructure protection and cybersecurity, in line with Trump’s demand that NATO allies shoulder a greater share of alliance costs—specifically, dedicating 5% of GDP to defense spending.
Bloomberg reported in May that Germany and Spain led opposition to the European Commission’s plan to ban non-allied country suppliers from participating in telecom network construction—a move aimed at strengthening regulation through amendments to the EU Cybersecurity Act.
According to informed sources, officials in Berlin and Madrid wish to maintain national-level control, which could provoke retaliatory measures from adversaries.
In recent years, Germany has repeatedly faced issues related to removing equipment from key networks. In October last year, reports emerged that the German government had considered using public funds to compensate Deutsche Telekom and other telecom operators for replacing foreign-made equipment.
Following Trump’s 2025 push for all allies except Spain to commit to increasing defense spending by 2035, funding issues within NATO are set to become a focal point again at the summit scheduled for July in Turkey.
A NATO official noted that the 1.5% of GDP designated for defense-related spending can be used for cyber defense, including supplier replacement. The official declined to comment and did not confirm whether Yang had held the aforementioned discussions with allied officials in Brussels.
The Trump administration has openly criticized allies for counting non-defense-related expenses toward the 1.5% fiscal target.
In 2025, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Whitaker condemned allies’ "very broad interpretation" of this portion of spending.
For example, Italy once considered whether to count the cost of constructing the world’s longest suspension bridge as military expenditure—but ultimately abandoned the idea.
Source: rfi
Original: toutiao.com/article/1867567464978506/
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