BRUSSELS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not expected to attend a NATO defence ministers' meeting in Brussels next month, two sources said, the second time in a row a Trump administration official has skipped a gathering of the military alliance.
The sources, a U.S. official and a NATO diplomat, both said Hegseth would miss the Feb 12 gathering at NATO headquarters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not attend the last NATO foreign ministers' meeting in December.
The
two sources did not cite any reason for Hegseth's decision. The Pentagon and NATO had no immediate comment.
Until U.S. President Donald Trump's second term in office, it was highly unusual for a U.S. Cabinet official to skip a meeting of NATO ministers. The United States is the alliance's military superpower and political lynchpin.
But the Trump administration has made clear that the United States has new military priorities, which means Europe will have to take more responsibility for its own defence.
Washington has said the U.S. remains committed to NATO. But the alliance has been strained by tensions between Trump and European allies, most recently over his desire to acquire Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of fellow NATO member Denmark.
That crisis was defused, at least for the moment, after Trump held talks last week in Davos with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Rutte said the leaders had agreed that officials from the United States, Denmark and Greenland would hold trilateral talks and that NATO would play a greater role in Arctic security.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray and Phil Stewart, Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Chizu Nomiyama )
