NATO summit – Trump was so cute

World leaders during a NATO plenary meeting on June 25.
Photo: Bloomberg

NATO leaders agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP and renewed their “ironclad commitment” to mutual security in an historic move to push back against an increasingly belligerent Russia, Bloomberg reports.

The decision from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 32 members at their high-stakes summit in The Hague is a major win for Donald Trump, who has repeatedly lambasted his European allies for underspending on security. But it was also a victory for his European allies and the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, who had worked for months to ensure the US renewed its Article 5 commitments on collective defense.

Trump, a longstanding skeptic about US spending on European security, had voiced doubts about how far he would be willing to honor those obligations on his flight to The Hague. But he later said that discussions with other leaders had changed his view.

“I left here differently,” he said at a press conference following the summit. “It’s not a rip off and we’re here to help them protect their countries.”

With all 32 members on track to meet the previous 2% target for the first time ever this year, the new goals promise to transform Europe’s militaries and the security architecture of the continent.

Germany, which has historically been reluctant to spend on defense, is engaged in the most dramatic shift, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz promising to build Europe’s most powerful conventional military.

“This is a memorable day that will certainly go down in NATO history,” Merz said. “Looking at Moscow in particular shows what we have in NATO: We must not simply take freedom, peace, security for granted.”

Whether all member states eventually reach the spending goals agreed to on Wednesday remains an open question. Spain and Slovakia have already raised doubts about allocating that much money to defense and the targets themselves give countries a lot of leeway in how they measure their military expenditures.

Spain, the most conspicuous holdout on the 5% target, drew the ire of Trump for its stance. The US president said that he would impose tougher trade terms on Spain as a result.

“They want a little bit of a free ride,” he said. “We’re going to make Spain pay twice as much.”

The declaration endorsed at the two-day summit in the Netherlands states that allies “remain united and steadfast in our resolve to protect our one billion citizens, defend the Alliance, and safeguard our freedom and democracy.”

Rutte has suggested that the Kremlin may be in a position to consider an attack on the alliance within five years.

The declaration affirms NATO’s support for Ukraine, while omitting last year’s statement that the country’s future is in the alliance, reflecting the Trump administration’s growing reluctance to provide more military assistance to Kyiv. The US president met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit as Kyiv seeks to buy more US weapons.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters that the mood of “pretty well all participants” in the session was that “we need to now push harder on Ukraine” and that it was time for Russian President Vladimir Putin “to come to the table.”

The new ambitious pledge also comes at a time when many European countries are already grappling with high public debt levels. Some of them, led by Spain, questioned whether they will need to spend so much to meet the new ambitious lists of weapons and troops that each needs to provide as part of its NATO commitment.

The allies have agreed that “the trajectory and balance of spending” will be reviewed in 2029. Direct contributions toward Ukraine’s defense will also count toward their military spending, according to the declaration.

NATO leaders convening Wednesday in the Netherlands delivered President Donald Trump a major win by boosting their defense spending targets.

The split dynamic — where leaders tailored their gathering to appeal to Trump, even as he questions the core provision of membership — made for a charged atmosphere as the conference was getting underway at The Hague, CNN notes.

Trump vowed to stand alongside fellow NATO nations a day after hedging in his support for the alliance’s Article 5 pact, which says an attack against one member is an attack against all.

“We’re with them all the way,” Trump said. “If you take a look at the numbers, we’re with them.”

Trump, who spent the night at a Dutch royal palace after flying from Washington, attended the summit’s sole plenary session before meeting on the sidelines with Zelensky and holding a press conference.

The central outcome of the summit — a pledge by members to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP in a decade, up from the current target of 2% — is exactly what Trump has been demanding over the past several years.

The final communiqué was dramatically shortened, omitting any controversial language that might spark resistance from the United States.

And while Ukraine and its president are still on the agenda, the country’s war with Russia will take a far less prominent place than in NATO summits past, a sign of the differences emerging between Europe and Trump over how to resolve the conflict.

NATO chief Mark Rutte, whose relationship with Trump extends back to his years as Dutch prime minister, elected to place the spending targets at the center of the summit and made sure to credit Trump for making it happen in a private message that Trump later posted on social media.

“You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” Rutte wrote, before wishing the US president a safe journey to the Netherlands.

The fawning tone prompted some private eyebrow raising among European officials, but Rutte denied any discomfort when a reporter asked Wednesday whether the episode wasn’t a little embarrassing. And the NATO chief used even more evocative language later in the day, calling Trump the “daddy” who had to intervene after the US president compared Israel and Iran to “two kids in a school yard.”

As it turned out, Trump didn’t actually have to be at the NATO summit in order to raise fresh concerns about his commitment to the alliance, which he’s not been shy about criticizing in the past.

…However, for Russia, there is nothing positive to be seen in this meeting. The same speeches, the same plans.

Having realized that they failed to topple Russia with one decisive blow, they are now planning a long game. Secretary General Rutte called it a “production war”, or, to put it simply, drawing Russia into another arms race.

They want to scrape together a ton of money, forcing us to spend all Russian resources on defense? Naive people. This time Europe itself will break down.

Enough of “playing soldiers”, or... it will be European final collapse.

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