The U.S.’ call for allies to step up defense spending is legitimate, according to Dutch deputy prime minster Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius.

Speaking to CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah on the sidelines of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Yesilgoz said that before the Ukraine war broke out, the Netherlands had relied a lot on allies.

“So I think this is a very clear message, and it’s very important that every NATO ally has to make sure that we invest enough the 5% we agreed upon during the Hague summit. The Netherlands is doing this, and I urge also other countries to do so,” she added.

Back in June 2025, NATO countries — except Spain — had committed to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense, split into 3.5% for direct spending and 1.5% for related spending.

Yesilgoz also pointed out that five years ago, it would have been impossible for the Dutch public to support such an increase in defense spending, but after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, there is huge support for extra defense spending, she said.

Amsterdam spent about 2.2% of its GDP on defense in 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Her comments also come as U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took aim at European countries during his speech at the Dialogue, saying that Washington will no longer subsidize the defense of “wealthy nations.”

“For too long, polite pleas [to] our European allies to spend more on their own defense fell on deaf ears. They are finally playing catch up,” Hegseth said.

Yesilgoz said that it was “very, very important to make sure that we share the burden, because it is a collective one.”

She admitted that Amsterdam needs to be able to defend itself, but it is not in that position yet, and the country needs to “step it up.”

“You have a choice, you’re either on the menu or you’re having a seat at the table, and if you don’t step up with your defense spending… then you will be on the menu,” she said. “I don’t want the Dutch, the Netherlands to be on the menu, I want to have a voice at the table.”

The U.S. aims to sustain equilibrium in the Asia-Pacific region and is working toward a situation where its allies are more capable, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said, while also warning China not to disrupt the status quo.

“The bedrock of partnership is alignment on national interests,” Hegseth said in remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday. The U.S. will take a “strong, quiet, clear” approach to alliances, he said.

He praised countries like the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for stepping up and sharing the burdens of defense and alliances.

Vietnam and India also got call-outs for improving their military readiness.

While Hegseth said the U.S.’s relationship with China is the strongest it’s been in a long time, he also directly called out the country.

Washington seeks “a favorable but durable balance of power in which no state, including China, can impose its hegemony and hold the security or prosperity of our nation and our allies in question,” he said.

Hegseth had some choice words for Europe, complaining that allies in the region hadn’t pulled their weight.

Alliances should happen “without the drama and the moralizing,” he said. “Europe should take note.”

— This is breaking news, please check back for updates.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that “many” oil-rich U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf have requested a financial backstop amid economic turbulence from the war with Iran.

Bessent’s comments go further than White House assertions to CNBC on Tuesday, where an official said the U.S. had not yet been formally asked to establish a currency swap line by the United Arab Emirates, only that there had been discussions about the topic.

Such a swap line would provide the UAE or other Gulf nations with liquidity in the U.S. dollar, but comes loaded with political risk as U.S. consumers weather higher prices from the war for food, gas and other everyday purchases.

“Many of our Gulf allies have requested swap lines,” Bessent said. “Swap lines, whether it’s from the Federal Reserve or the Treasury, are to maintain order in the dollar funding markets and to prevent the sale of the U.S. assets in a disorderly way.”

“The swap line would both benefit the UAE and the U.S., and as I said, numerous other countries, including some of our Asian allies [who] have also requested them,” he said, without specifying which other countries.

Gulf countries, including the UAE, have been hit hard by the war with Iran. Tehran has fired missiles at U.S. allies in the region, damaging economic infrastructure. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also choked oil revenues that are critical to Gulf nations.

A currency swap could also be necessary to ensure the U.S. dollar, which is dominant in nearly all oil exchanges, remains in use.

President Donald Trump said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday that he would like to assist the UAE if it’s possible.

“If I could help them, I would,” the president said.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who serves on both the Senate Finance and Foreign Relations committees, was supportive of a currency swap with the UAE in a Tuesday interview with CNBC.

Daines said he thinks “[Bessent] is moving in that direction, and I support him in that.” 

Democrats, however, are likely to take advantage of the political opening from a currency swap, especially with wealthy nations in the Middle East. The UAE has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who questioned Bessent on the potential currency swap at the hearing, highlighted the domestic economic circumstances under which a swap would occur.

“The war in Iran has already cost us dearly, Van Hollen said. “In addition to lives lost, we’re talking about over a billion dollars a day in taxpayer money, we’re talking about higher gas prices, higher prices overall, and now we understand that the UAE is asking you to provide them a swap line through the Exchange…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned the U.K. and France that the U.S. “won’t be there to help you anymore,” as he vented his frustration over the close allies’ refusal to join military action against Iran.

Posting on Truth Social, Trump said, “the Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory.”

“France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!,” he said in one post.

In another post, the president singled out the U.K. for criticism while urging other countries to take action in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil route that Iran has effectively blocked during the war.

“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you,” Trump wrote.

“Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!,” he wrote.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth piled on at a press briefing later Tuesday morning.

“There are countries around the world who ought be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well,” he said. “It’s not just the United States Navy. Last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big, bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well.”

When asked if reopening the strait is a core objective for the U.S. to end the war, Hegseth said defeating Iran’s navy remains a key goal, but clearing the waterway is not just the U.S.’ “problem set.”

“I think other countries should pay attention” to Trump’s words, Hegseth said, referring to the Truth Social posts. “He’s pointing out, you know, might want to start learning how to fight for yourself.”

Hegseth also downplayed Trump’s repeated insistence that the U.S. is ahead of schedule in achieving its objectives in Iran within a four-to-six-week time frame.

Trump “said four to six weeks, six to eight weeks, three — It could be any, any particular number, but we would never reveal precisely what it is, because our goal is to finish those objectives, and we’re well on our way,” the secretary said.

The Trump administration initially predicted the war would last “days.”

Trump has previously shared his disdain for European allies that have refused to take part in the U.S. and Israel’s military operation against Iran, particularly after they expressed their misgivings at getting involved in what would be highly dangerous efforts to reopen the Strait of…

Hello, this is Hui Jie writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

U.S. allies seem to be caught between Iranian attacks and criticism from the U.S. president, with investors also focused on events in the AI space and the Fed’s upcoming rate decision. 

“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” The first part of that African proverb seems to characterize U.S President Donald Trump’s strategy against Iran — after allies spurned his requests to join the Middle East war.  

Trump slammed the NATO alliance over their reluctance to get involved in the conflict, saying they were making a “foolish mistake” and asserting that the U.S. does not need any help with its ongoing military operations.

U.S. allies in the Gulf have been at the receiving end of the conflict they are not directly involved in, with Iran sharpening attacks against the United Arab Emirates, targeting its energy infrastructure. 

As the conflict escalates, cracks are starting to show in Trump’s own administration. On Tuesday stateside, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced his resignation, saying Iran had never posed a threat to the U.S.

Away from the war, tech is back on investors’ minds after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that open-source autonomous AI agent platform OpenClaw was ‘definitely the next ChatGPT.’

The chief of the most valuable company in the world also said that Nvidia was preparing to provide its H200 processors to some customers in China. “We have received purchase orders, and we’re in the process of restarting our manufacturing,” Huang said. Nvidia has now got clearance from both the U.S. and China to sell the H200.

Further on the tech front, OpenAI is focusing employee and investor attention on its enterprise business as the artificial intelligence startup gears up to go public, potentially by the end of the year, CNBC has learned.

In an ironic framing of events, political America is looking to go fast and alone, while tech America is looking to go far and together. 

— Lim Hui Jie

The Fed issues its latest interest rate decision Wednesday. Here’s what to expect

The Federal Reserve has little choice but to stay on the sidelines this week as it navigates a mix of complicated and conflicting forces playing out in the U.S. economy.

Markets are pricing in a near-zero chance that the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will be cutting at this meeting — or any other in the near future. Futures pricing suggests policymakers won’t consider easing until at least September, more likely October, and even then just a single cut this year.

— Jeff Cox

President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed the U.S.’ NATO allies over their reluctance to get involved in the Iran war, before asserting that the U.S. does not need any help with its ongoing military operations.

The alliance of 32 European and North American nations is “making a very foolish mistake,” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with the prime minister of Ireland, which is not a NATO member.

Trump, a longtime NATO critic who has accused the organization of taking advantage of the U.S.’ spending and military strength, called the members’ hesitance to join the Iran war “a great test, because we don’t need them, but they should have been there.”

Trump has claimed in recent days that numerous countries would be joining a coalition to aid the U.S. in Iran, including by helping to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route that has been choked off amid the war.

He has called on “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait” to “take care of that passage.” But so far, no NATO countries have firmly committed to doing so.

In a Truth Social post earlier Tuesday, Trump said he was “not surprised” at NATO because he views it as a “one way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us.”

“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” Trump wrote.

Oil prices rose shortly after Trump’s post, which cast doubt on the prospect that a multistate coalition will reopen the key strait.

Trump, in his Oval Office remarks, also suggested that his much-anticipated trip to China to meet with President Xi Jinping would take place in “about five or six weeks.”

Trump was expected to depart for the summit at the end of March, but his administration signaled in recent days that a delay was likely.

The scheduling changes coincided with new turbulence between the two superpowers, related to the war against Iran — a major seller of oil to China — and a new U.S. investigation into Chinese trade practices.

The U.K., the European Union and Singapore face higher trade-weighted tariffs, while countries such as Brazil, China and India will see such levies go down after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would raise global duties to 15%.

This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 tariff ruling that the president wrongfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to implement his levies.

Trump later responded by imposing a global 10% duty under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which was then raised to 15%.

On a trade-weighted basis, the U.K. faces a 2.1 percentage point increase in its average tariff rate, while the EU sees a 0.8 point rise, according to analysis from Swiss-based trade watchdog Global Trade Alert. In contrast, Brazil’s rate plunges 13.6 points, and China’s drops 7.1 points.

The EU Commission said it would request “full clarity” on the ruling, noting that “a deal was a deal,” with no increases in tariffs beyond the 15% ceiling previously agreed. The 27-member bloc had agreed a trade deal with the U.S. back in August last year that would see exports to Washington capped at a 15% tariff.

Asian allies Japan and South Korea face an increase in their trade-weighted average tariff rate of 0.4 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points, respectively. Both countries had agreed to a 15% tariff on their exports to the U.S. last year.

Countries that had negotiated a 10% “reciprocal rate,” like the U.K., as well as countries receiving the baseline 10% rate like Singapore, Australia and Saudi Arabia, will then see their trade-weighted tariff rate rise, as the IEEPA tariffs are now replaced by Section 122 duties.

However, Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, had a different view, telling CNBC “Inside India” that “those countries that were early…

The U.S. is looking increasingly isolated when it comes to its global geopolitical and trade relationships as allies reassess their ties to the world’s largest economy and consider going it alone.

The new year has seen a number of nations and power blocs forging ahead with relationship resets, closer commercial ties and trade partnerships, sidelining a more hostile and volatile U.S. They include China’s “preliminary agreement” with Canada and rapprochement with the U.K., as well as the European Union’s agreements with India and South American countries.

Those deals and negotiations come after a year of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” trade and foreign policy in his second term in office, which has seen the White House hit friends and foes alike with punitive trade tariffs, and even territorial threats, as it asserts its economic and geopolitical dominance.

But that strategy could be backfiring, particularly as the U.S.’ friends and partners look to diversify their trade policies, in no small part to protect themselves from Trump’s unpredictability.

“Given what’s happening with the U.S. and its foreign policy, which was articulated in the recently released National Security Strategy … the ‘middle powers‘ need to find their own agency and figure out different approaches,” Damian Ma, director of Carnegie China, an East Asia-based research center, told CNBC on Thursday.

“Countries are going to align based on particular, specific à la carte interests, rather than a comprehensive values-based alignment,” he said, noting that while this was not a return to a divided Cold War mentality of opposing power blocs, it was more a “recalibration” of national interests.

“Where that recalibration and that new equilibrium ends is anyone’s guess, but you’re seeing countries starting to make moves finally. The U.K. and Canada are not going to be the only ones,” he said, predicting a “flood of countries recalibrating their approach” to superpowers like China and the U.S.

China and Canada agreed to…

The U.S. remains the “closest of allies” with the U.K. despite a growing rift between the U.S. and Europe over the future of Greenland, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told CNBC Wednesday.

“It’s an incredibly important relationship and always has been, for the U.K., and whether that’s about our military and intelligence links, our university and trade links, that continues because it’s in our interests that the relationship endures,” the finance minister told CNBC’s Carolin Roth at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“We don’t want to see an escalation, it’s in no one’s interests, not in the U.K.’s interests, not in America’s interests as well,” she added, but “we’ve been very clear on the issue of Greenland.”

The U.K. is having to tread a diplomatic tightrope with the U.S. amid heightened tensions between the world’s largest economy and Europe over Danish territory Greenland.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened escalating tariffs on the U.K. and seven other European nations, if they continue to oppose his takeover bid of the Arctic island.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has tried to use his good rapport with Trump to dissuade the president from pursuing Greenland or imposing fresh tariffs on NATO allies.

He and other European leaders have called for more talks, while continuing to defend the sovereignty of Denmark and Greenland.

However, Trump took aim at the U.K. again on the eve of his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, lambasting London’s decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The islands include Diego Garcia where a joint U.K.-U.S. military base is stationed. The deal, which was agreed in May 2025, saw the British government agree to hand sovereignty to Mauritius, but to lease the military base on Diego Garcia for £101 million ($135.7 million) a year.

The White House voiced its support for the deal last year but on Tuesday, Trump said it was “an act of great stupidity.”

“Shockingly, our “brilliant” NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” Trump posted on social media platform Truth Social early Tuesday.

Uncertainty over Greenland and tariffs has left the “special relationship” looking far more vulnerable, and it’s difficult to ascertain where the dispute leaves respective trade deals between the U.K. and EU and the White House, although U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that there was no need for existing trade deals to come undone.

“We’ve had this rodeo before,” Peter Kyle, U.K. trade secretary, told CNBC Wednesday.

“We’ve been through Liberation Day [when Trump announced global trade tariffs last April], which was quite a moment in global economic…

European leaders have hit back at U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on them if they oppose his attempt to buy Greenland, describing the ultimatum as “completely wrong” and “unacceptable.”

Trump announced on Saturday that eight European allies would face increasing tariffs, starting at 10% on Feb.1 and rising to 25% on June 1, if a deal is not reached so Washington can “buy” the Arctic territory, which is semi-autonomous and part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Eight NATO members’ goods sent to the U.S. will face escalating tariffs “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” Trump stated on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.

The proposed tariffs would target Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K, the Netherlands and Finland, Trump said.

European leaders were quick to react to the latest threat with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer commenting Saturday that “applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong,” while French President Emmanuel Macron described them as “unacceptable.”

“Europeans will respond in a united and coordinated manner should they be confirmed. We will ensure that European sovereignty is upheld,” Macron stated on social media platform X on Saturday,

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Antonio Costa issued a statement Saturday in which they said the EU “stands in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland.”

It added that it was committed to further dialogue following talks between Denmark, Greenland and top U.S. officials last week, which ended without a diplomatic breakthrough.

Nonetheless, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Trump’s tariffs threat had come “as a surprise” following the “constructive meeting” with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The European Union has called an emergency meeting which will take place at 16:00 p.m. London time on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who, like British PM Keir Starmer is known to have a good relationship with Donald Trump, called for cool heads and further talks.

He warned further tariffs — which would come on top of the 15% tariff on EU exports to the U.S., and the 10% levied on U.K. exports — would be damaging, however.

“Among allies, issues are best resolved through discussion, not through pressure,” he said on X.

“European countries stand united. We emphasize the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty. We support Denmark and Greenland. Dialogue with the United States continues. Tariffs would undermine the transatlantic relationship and…