Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby

I am profoundly honored to begin work under President @realdonaldtrump & @secdef as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. I am also very grateful to @VP, including for swearing me in last week. 🧵1/

.@POTUS: "Today, we are reminded that there could be no Fourth of July without America’s Armed Forces—and there could be no Independence Day without Memorial Day."

This Memorial Day, we honor the service and sacrifice of the brave Americans who gave their lives for this great nation. We will never forget their courage, their devotion, and the freedoms they fought to defend.

We will always honor the brave Americans who answered the call in Vietnam. Thanks to @Interior @DeptVetAffairs and @NatlParkService for helping ensure that our heroes are never forgotten.

SECRETARY RUBIO: There’s never been a time in which there hasn't been a debate in American politics about what our presence and our contribution to NATO should be. NATO is valuable to Europe and it should be, but it also has to be valuable to the United States.

SECRETARY RUBIO on U.S. TROOP SHIFTS IN EUROPE: There is a growing acknowledgment that something needs to happen. Even though NATO is an alliance, it’s still a collection of individual countries who all have different politics, budgets, and political considerations.

SECRETARY RUBIO: The U.S. is constantly reevaluating the threat matrix in the world. Every administration has constantly had to reevaluate these things. There’s a broad recognition that there’s going to be less troops in Europe than there have historically been.

SECRETARY RUBIO: It’s well understood in NATO that U.S. troop presence in Europe is going to be adjusted. We have obligations in the Indo-Pacific. We have obligations in the Middle East. We have obligations in the Western Hemisphere.

In my meeting with @SecGenNATO I underscored that the Alliance must unambiguously commit at the upcoming Ankara Summit to rapidly scale defense production, expand our transatlantic defense industrial base, and turn spending commitments into real warfighting capabilities. A stronger Europe means a stronger NATO.

I had a very productive meeting with my colleague Polish Secretary of State Pawel Zalewski this morning. I re-emphasized our message that the U.S. is driving real burden-sharing for a European-led conventional defense, a message we will be continuing to share with allies in the coming weeks. In this context, Poland stands out as a model ally and a leader among our allies. We look forward to working closely with Poland and to ensuring our presence in Poland remains strong and robust.

Under President Trump, our mission in Brussels has been clear: transitioning the conventional defense of Europe to our Allies. The U.S. remains a committed partner, but Allies must step up and take over.

Rozmawiałem dziś z Podsekretarzem ds. Polityki @DeptofWar @ElbridgeColby. To była dobra, otwarta i partnerska rozmowa. Otrzymałem potwierdzenie, że na kształt stosunków między Polską a USA, zwłaszcza w obszarze bezpieczeństwa, wpływa dobra relacja osobista między Prezydentem RP, a Prezydentem USA. Zostałem także zapewniony, że USA traktują Polskę jako wzorowego sojusznika i że jako kraj możemy liczyć na utrzymanie mocnego zaangażowania sił amerykańskich. Dziękuję, @ElbridgeColby, za rozmowę i do zobaczenia w niedługim czasie.

Delivering on shared continental defense begins by recognizing our shared geography. Only by investing in our own defense capabilities will Americans and Canadians be safe, secure, and prosperous. 3/3

We can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality. Real powers must sustain our rhetoric with shared defense and security responsibilities. 2/3 weforum.org/stories/2026/0…

A strong Canada that prioritizes hard power over rhetoric benefits us all. Unfortunately, Canada has failed to make credible progress on its defense commitments. DoW is pausing the Permanent Joint Board on Defense to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defense. 1/3

Great hosting @USAmbCanada Pete Hoekstra at the Pentagon recently. We're working closely to ensure every NATO partner, including Canada, reaches the Hague Summit's 3.5% GDP defense spending target, a vital investment for North American and Arctic defense.

Last night U.S. forces, in coordination with the Armed Forces of Nigeria, killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki and other ISIS leaders. Back in November 2025, President Trump declared to the world that we will help protect Christians in Nigeria and instructed the Department of War to prepare for action. So, for months, we hunted this top ISIS leader in Nigeria who was killing Christians, and we killed him—and his entire posse. In conjunction with Nigeria’s President, and at the direction of President Trump, U.S. Africa Command oversaw a precise operation to remove this terrorist. Abu-Bilal al-Minuki was the senior ISIS General Directorate of Provinces Emir — the number two for ISIS globally — responsible for overseeing the planning of attacks, directing hostage-taking and managing financial operations. The removal of him and other ISIS personnel makes Americans safer by further degrading ISIS’s ability to plan and carry out attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, American citizens, and innocent civilians. Operations like last night’s demonstrate the exceptional lethality, patience and skill of U.S. forces, amplified alongside willing and capable partners, to address shared threats. This should serve as a reminder that we will hunt down those who wish to harm Americans or innocent Christians, wherever they are.

This week's USNATO Huddle is on NATO 3.0. The era of America footing an outsized bill for Europe’s defense has ended. Led by President Trump’s America First Foreign Policy, the United States demands actions, not words, from our Allies.

Thanks to President Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget, this War Department has moved from bureaucracy to business. This is a FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT in our Arsenal of Freedom—ensuring our military remains the most lethal fighting force in the world.

NATO 3.0’s value proposition is about Allies stepping up and turning commitments into capabilities. That means frigates, submarines, airplanes, and more. And not just for the Alliance–for the United States of America.

.@SenDanSullivan and @SecWar are absolutely right: Our NATO and Asian allies must do more to meet President Trump’s global standard of spending 5% of GDP on defense—3.5% on core military spending and 1.5% on security-related investments—as outlined in the National Security Strategy.