Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton met with Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis on Friday to reaffirm the United States’ commitment both to Latvia and to participating in NATO.
“The meeting primarily focused on the NATO alliance and the United States’s bilateral military commitments to Latvia,” according a statement from Cotton’s office. The meeting “reaffirmed the ironclad mutual defense covenant of NATO,” calling it “vital” in light of “renewed Russian belligerence and unpredictability.”
Donald Trump, whom Cotton has endorsed, has questioned American participation in the 28-member alliance, citing the fact that only five countries are fulfilling an obligation to contribute at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product toward defense. Those countries include the U.S., the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece and Estonia.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2594746
The speculation has been unsettling to former Soviet satellites such as Latvia, which left the Soviet Union in 1990, particularly after Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere. Ethnic Russians comprise approximately one-fifth of Latvia’s two million citizens.
Cotton’s statement sought to downplay any concerns, saying Americans “have long recognized the spirit of independence that sustained the Latvian people during darker times” and adding the country’s continued security “is not only in Latvia’s interest or in Europe’s interest, but in the national security interest of the United States.”
