Trump plans to tout Iran strikes at NATO summit focused on European defense spending
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The singular narrative of this NATO summit is European allies investing more in their own defense.
But Donald Trump isn't interested in following anyone else's script.
At his press conference here on Wednesday, the president intends to talk as much about the U.S. strikes on Iran and its fragile ceasefire with Israel — for which he credits himself — as he does the historic defense spending pledge NATO members agreed to this week largely at his behest, according to a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the president's plans.
And as Trump made clear in his comments on Tuesday, his view of the transatlantic alliance is a departure from predecessors who long described Article V as sacrosanct.
When asked aboard Air Force One if he was committed to that bedrock principle of the NATO charter, under which an attack on any member nation is deemed an attack on all, Trump hedged.
'Depends on your definition,' Trump said. 'There's numerous definitions of Article V.'
A second White House official, also granted anonymity to discuss the president's thoughts about NATO, said the president was referring to the open-ended nature of Article V's potential application and how circumstances would likely dictate what allies would be compelled to do to defend a member country in the event of an attack.
Trump has said previously he might only come to the defense of nations that are meeting NATO's agreed upon spending benchmarks. When pressed on the matterTuesday, he said he was 'committed to being their friend. You know I've become friends with many of those leaders. And I'm committed to helping them.'
'I'm committed to saving lives. I'm committed to life and safety,' Trump added, declining to get specific.
Trump was all smiles as he posed for a 'family photo' alongside the other leaders Tuesday evening at a welcome dinner hosted by the Dutch royal family at the Paleis Huis ten Bosch. The group included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who Trump is expected to meet with on Wednesday in between the main NATO plenary session and his closing press conference.
Trump's comments came just hours after Secretary General Mark Rutte chided those who still question America's commitment to the longstanding defense pact under Trump. He urged Europeans to 'stop worrying so much' given all that the U.S. is contributing to continental defenses.
'They are there, they are with us,' Rutte said.
But even at this summit engineered to appease Trump by cementing a spending pledge for Europe to share more of the burden of its defense, the questions won't go away.
'Europe and the U.S. seem to share this goal of rebalancing the alliance,' said one European official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations among EU officials. 'But with Trump there is always going to be this uncertainty about how much America will really be there for us if and when we need them to be.'
Some of the deeper anxiety stems from the Pentagon's ongoing review of its force posture in Europe, which has NATO members nervous that some U.S. forces may be relocated out of Europe in the months ahead or on a timeline that doesn't allow them to boost their own forces. But a lot of the concern relates to the views the president has expressed, including comments Tuesday likening the alliance to a failing company that he helped revive.
'NATO was broke,' Trump said, noting that only 'seven of the 28' countries in the alliance at that time were 'paying their dues.'
The alliance agreed in 2014 that all member countries would aim to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024. While Trump correctly says that it wasn't until after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine that a majority of NATO members were at or above the 2 percent level, the pledge was never binding or required for continued membership in the alliance.
Rhetoric aside, Trump has moved into closer alignment with NATO allies overall, largely as a result of Russia's unwillingness to go along with his attempts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. And the alliance's new commitment that member nations will spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035 marks the fulfillment of a foreign policy priority that Trump has been calling for since 2016.
With his efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin having hit a dead end, Trump has 'reoriented and is no longer so focused on finding a deal with Moscow,' said Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm. 'They're now putting a lot more effort into engaging with the Europeans on what the additional defense spend looks like. That's a big shift from just a few months ago when everyone thought Trump was about to go to Moscow.'
Trump may not be withdrawing the U.S. from the alliance, as he threatened he might during the 2018 summit in Brussels if allies didn't get serious about defense spending. But he's still causing concern among European leaders because he's not consulting with European partners the way his predecessors did.
'They shouldn't expect him to at this point,' the second White House official said. 'He's going to be decisive and do what he thinks is best for America.'
Trump, another European official noted, didn't give European leaders much warning before he authorized last Saturday's B-2 strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Although he did leave leaders at the G7 summit in Canada last week with the sense that he was leaning toward such an attack.
While he criticized Spain for requesting an exemption from NATO's new defense spending mandate, the president reaffirmed his belief that the U.S. shouldn't have to abide by it either. America spends 3.4 percent of GDP on defense, just shy of the 3.5 percent benchmark countries will have a decade to reach. But Trump's stance has less to do with America's capabilities than with its self interest. As he made clear, he's philosophically opposed to continuing to be responsible for defending Europe.
'I don't think we should pay what everyone else [does]. You know; they're in Europe. We're not,' he said. 'A lot of that money goes to rebuilding their bridges, their roads, so it can take heavy equipment. And you know, we don't have any roads in Europe. We don't have any bridges in Europe.'
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