NATO leaders abasing themselves before Donald Trump in Ankara undermine claims that the military spending splurge makes us more independent of Washington.

The alliance’s slavish secretary-general Mark Rutte raced today to endorse further US violence that could reignite all-out war with Iran, claiming overnight air strikes had been “absolutely necessary… for Israel, Europe, the wider world.”

Rutte is unusual among European politicians in regularly stressing his passionate support for the unprovoked war started by the United States and Israel in February, which has killed thousands, prompted an apparently open-ended Israeli occupation of parts of Lebanon and disrupted global trade with painful consequences for working-class living standards. But the nodding dogs of US imperialism assembled in Ankara continue to blame the victim for the war.

Trump’s unpredictable aggression is sometimes cited as a reason to give in to the all but limitless demands for money by the military-industrial complex — and they are nearly limitless.

In Britain, a defence investment plan from Keir Starmer that will increase the military budget from £54 billion to £80bn a year within three years — a 48 per cent hike — is derided across the whole Westminster political spectrum as hopelessly inadequate.

Germany, having exempted military spending from the balanced-book constraints it applies to everything else from housing to hospitals, now plans to borrow a mind-boggling €800bn (£680bn) to spend on armaments in the next four years.

This rearmament drive is presented as Europe developing the capacity to defend itself.

Luckless Denmark had to insist again today that this included defending itself from the United States, since Trump repeated his determination to seize control of Greenland.

More usually the claim is that Europe needs to reduce dependency on the US to defend itself against others, especially Russia. Either way, the insinuation is that spending more is a way to stand up to Trump.

It ignores the fact that these demands for huge increases in spending originate with Trump — which is why the heads of Nato member states began the summit boasting of multibillion-dollar arms deals in a bid to appease him.

Most of those deals primarily benefit US arms companies. A Rheinmetall-Lockheed Martin accord to build ballistic missiles in Germany. A British promise of $254 million (£190m) to Lockheed Martin for precision-strike missiles. Pledges from five member states to buy high-altitude surveillance drones from Northrop Grumman.

Like Starmer’s decision to buy nuclear-capable F-35A jets from the US and to allow it to station nuclear bombs at Lakenheath in Suffolk, these deals do not increase operational independence from Washington. They embed us still more deeply in a US-controlled war machine.

Which is what Nato is. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (currently air force General Alexus G Grynkewich) is always a US officer.

Under Trump, that war machine is being deployed more recklessly than ever before, with Cuba being threatened even before the close of hostilities in Iran.

Those who look for a liberal counterweight to the US should note the backtracking on Cuba, as countries which have always condemned the blockade —Germany, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands — abstained at the UN this week to suck up to Trump. The overwhelming majority of states worldwide stood with Cuba, but those turning their faces away at its hour of need are precisely the Nato lackeys sometimes pitched as alternative security partners.

Nato is a US alliance, and Trump’s tantrums about allies not pulling their weight is a demand we put more resources at Washington’s disposal.

Europe is not an alternative pole to the US, it is a pillar of the US-led imperialist system, a facilitator of US and Israeli war crimes and an enemy of the global South.

Trump has turned more people than ever against the US alliance. Time to campaign for withdrawal from Nato, and the expulsion of US troops from our country.