U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed Friday the need for traditional Western allies to work together to face modern threats, while at the same time defending Trump administration policies on tariffs, NATO spending and other issues that have raised the ire of traditional friends.
On the final day of a two-day visit focused on events marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pompeo told guests at the Koerber Stiftung think-tank that the West was wrong to think that "free societies would flourish everywhere" after the end of communism.
He singled out Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden" whose country "invades its neighbors and slays political opponents," and said the Chinese Communist Party "uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans."
"And we have to do it together because it's not easy and doing it alone is impossible." On the heels of comments from French President Emmanuel Macron that the lack of U.S. leadership is causing the "brain death" of NATO, Pompeo defended the need for the alliance and elaborated on past comments from President Donald Trump calling it "obsolete."
This is why we ask more of NATO allies, because western, free nations have a responsibility to deter threats to our people and we're stronger together."