Steve Bannon, the outspoken former adviser to Donald Trump, has branded NATO a "protectorate, not an alliance" as he called for European elites to "pitch in".
Mr Bannon, who wants a less interventionist US foreign policy, told LBC's Andrew Marr that NATO, which was set up after the Second World War to provide security against the Soviet Union, had become "an American security guarantee" for Europe.
NATO member states are meant to put 2% of their GDP into their annual military budgets. But just seven of 30 NATO member states in 2022, the latest figures available - despite Russia invading Ukraine, a NATO neighbour in February that year.
The seven who contributed 2% or more were the US, UK, Greece, Poland and the three Baltic states. Eight members met the required military spending rate the year before.
Mr Bannon, a controversial figure for his right-wing views, denied that
Mr Trump wanted to "cut ties" with NATO if he regained the US presidency in November. Mr Trump got his re-election campaign off to a strong start on Monday by winning the Iowa caucus of Republican candidates for the party's nomination.
Mr Bannon, who served in Mr Trump's White House from 2016-2017, told Andrew:"What we’ve always argued for, and I argued with the national security advisors of the individual countries, is we want it to be an alliance. That means, like England and like Poland, you have to meet the minimum of the 2% of GDP to throw into the pot."
He added that "more importantly, you have to have a military that has interoperability - it’s actually an alliance. It's not an alliance right now. It's basically an American security guarantee of European freedom and that can’t happen.
"You can’t have countries in Europe that have healthcare, six week vacations, pension funds, and the American people have none of that, because we have a trillion-dollar defence budget."
