NATO to take 'quantum leap' with 5% summit pledge: Rutte
The 32 members of the alliance will pledge to boost defence expenditure to five percent of gross domestic product, a key demand of President Donald Trump, who has long grumbled that the US pays too much for NATO.
NATO's members have thrashed out a compromise deal to dedicate at least 3.5 percent of GDP to core military needs by 2035, and 1.5 percent to broader security-related items like cybersecurity and infrastructure.
"The defence investment plan that allies will agree in The Hague introduces a new baseline, five percent of GDP to be invested in defence," Rutte told reporters at a pre-summit news conference.
"This is a quantum leap that is ambitious, historic and fundamental to securing our future."
The focus at the summit in the Hague will be on keeping Trump happy after his return to power sparked fears he could blow a hole in the seven-decade-old alliance.
In the run-up to the meeting, Spain had sparked fears of undermining a carefully choreographed unity by refusing to commit to the headline figure of five percent.
But Rutte stressed that Spain had not been granted an "opt-out" from the pledge.
"NATO does not have as an alliance opt-outs, side deals, etcetera, because we all have to chip in," Rutte said.
The NATO chief said that the increase in spending would see the alliance boost its air defences five-fold and add thousands more tanks and armoured vehicles to its arsenals.
"Our focus is ensuring that we have all we need to deter and defend against any threat," he said.
"Of course, the most significant and direct threat facing this alliance remains the Russian Federation."
Iranian 'stranglehold'
Rutte insisted that the summit would also send a strong signal of support to Ukraine -- despite Trump upending the West's stance towards Russia's war on Kyiv.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a state dinner with the Dutch king but he has largely been sidelined from the summit's main event.
Rutte said that Europe was stepping up already to fill the gap left by Washington pulling back from supporting Ukraine.
He said that Europe and Canada had already pledged 35 billion euros ($40 billion) to help arm Kyiv so far this year.
Dismissing the idea that the fresh conflict between Israel and Iran could deflect attention from the summit, Rutte stressed that Tehran should not be permitted to possess a nuclear weapon.
He said his "greatest fear" was that Iran would secure access to a nuclear bomb, giving it a "stranglehold" over Israel, the region, and the wider world.
Over the weekend, Trump said that US warplanes had used "bunker buster" bombs that had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Other officials said it was too soon to assess the true impact on Iran's nuclear programme, which Israel and some Western states consider an existential threat.
Pressed over the legality of Washington's strikes against Iran, the NATO chief replied: "I would not agree that this is against international law, what the US did."
© 2025 AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
34 minutes ago
- France 24
Bluff and last-minute orders: Trump's path to Iran decision
The next evening he left the White House for a fundraising dinner at his New Jersey golf resort, and much of the world seemed to believe that there was still space for diplomacy. In reality, Trump was already on the verge of making his mind up. A few hours after his arrival at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on Friday night, the first B-2 stealth bombers took off from a US airbase. The next day, while the bombers were still in the air, Trump made the call on attacking three Iranian nuclear facilities, in the first direct US military strike on Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. "The president gave the final order to the Secretary of Defense on Saturday," a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "In the week leading up to the strike, the president was continuing to pursue diplomacy, mainly through Special Envoy (Steve) Witkoff's efforts, while the Pentagon was simultaneously preparing the operation," added the official. 'Misdirection' Trump's "two weeks" gambit appeared to be part of a broader campaign of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called "misdirection," which included several B-2s flying in the opposite direction as a decoy. Trump, the tycoon who prides himself as an expert on the "art of the deal," had ladled on the strategic ambiguity all week. First he flew home early from the G7 summit for talks with his national security team. Then he unleashed a barrage of bellicose social media posts against Iran's supreme leader. On Wednesday he said that "I may do it, I may not" when asked about striking Iran. Finally, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read out a statement from Trump in the White House briefing room on Thursday, saying there was a "substantial" chance of talks and that he would decide "whether or not to go within the next two weeks." It played into a frequent criticism of Trump for setting two-week deadlines on everything from Ukraine to health care and then ignoring them. But behind the scenes, Trump was increasingly determined, US officials said. Trump had opposed Israel attacking Iran right up until it did so on June 13 -- but afterwards he openly admired Israel's success and was talking daily to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel's achievement of air superiority over Iran presented Trump with a unique opportunity to hit the nuclear program that he had railed against since his first term. Trump was "briefed daily on the Israelis' efforts and the operation itself as he decided whether to move forward," the senior White House official said. The US commander-in-chief held daily meetings with his National Security Council in the White House's basement Situation Room as he pondered his options. And to head off opposition in his "Make America Great Again" movement to another Middle Eastern "forever war", he reportedly met his influential former aide Steve Bannon. 'Highly classified' In public, Trump and the White House took pains to keep things under wraps. The normally talkative Trump said nothing to reporters as he returned to the White House on Saturday night, just one minute after his scheduled 6 pm arrival. The timing was precise for a reason. The first B-2 bomber dropped its bombs just 40 minutes later, at 6:40 pm US time, or 2:10 am Sunday Iranian time. The last submarine-fired Tomahawk missiles struck at 7:05 pm. Trump announced the "very successful" strikes in a Truth Social post at 7:50 pm. The White House then released pictures of a pensive looking Trump in the Situation Room, wearing his red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. "This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan," US Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said on Sunday. But the tough decisions are far from over for Trump, who was meeting his top team again on Monday in the Oval Office. How will he respond to Iran's retaliation on Monday? If the US strikes did not completely destroy Iran's nuclear sites as he claimed, will he launch more? Above all, will Trump go further than striking Iran's nuclear plants? "If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
US strikes on Iran open rift in Trump's support base
Trump ran as an "America First" Republican who would avoid the foreign entanglements of his predecessors, tapping into his movement's unease about prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as more recent conflagrations in Gaza and Ukraine. Establishment Republicans -- and in particular the congressional party -- rallied behind their leader after Saturday's military action, welcoming what many see as an about-face and rejecting claims that the president had violated the Constitution. Beyond Washington's Beltway, some of the die-hard members of Trump's "Make America Great Again" coalition who follow him on the rally circuit also appear willing -- for now, at least -- to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I don't think we're going to end up in war. I think Trump is leader, and he's going to just obliterate them, and there won't be any war," 63-year-old Jane Sisk, a retired mother-of-six from Richmond, Virginia, told AFP. But the louder, more visible, more online faction of MAGA influencers and media personalities who oppose their government reaching beyond the US shoreline are desperate to sway Trump's supporters in the opposite direction. In a long post on X Monday, far-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene bemoaned having traveled the country campaigning for Trump, only to see him break his anti-interventionist covenant with his supporters. 'Bait and switch' "Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3," she thundered on the social media site. "It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!" While the post was astonishing for its uncompromising language -- Greene appropriated a Democratic talking point to add that Trump was "not a king" -- it was far from the first sign of MAGA dissent. Thomas Massie -- a House conservative who has piqued Trump's irritation with anti-war posts -- told CBS that members of his faction within MAGA were "tired from all these wars." And as Trump gave his televised address confirming details of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, his former top strategist Steve Bannon told viewers of his online "War Room" show that the president has "some work to do" to explain his decision. Other figures among Trump's right-wing support base have started to come around after initially voicing shock. Far-right influencer Charlie Kirk -- a leading MAGA anti-war voice before the weekend -- warned his millions of YouTube viewers that US involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict would cause "a major schism in the MAGA online community." 'Trust in Trump' But he appeared to have shifted his stance over the weekend, praising Trump for "prudence and decisiveness." The U-turn is symptomatic of a broader trend, analysts argue, among the softer MAGA isolationists to fall into line and simply embrace the White House's "trust in Trump" mantra now that they have lost the argument. Conservative Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen believes the president will hold his coalition together as long as they see Saturday's action as more akin to the 2020 US assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani than the start of a protracted war. "I think you saw some of that disagreement leading up to last night. I haven't seen a lot of disagreement since then," Chen told NBC on Sunday. Trust in Trump could be eroded, his allies warn, if Iran retaliates, dragging the United States into an escalating cycle of violence. But, for now, the president's coalition is on board with his warnings over Iran's nuclear threat. Polling conducted after the US strikes will take several days to filter through, but in the latest J.L. Partners survey just ahead of the mission, 67 percent of "MAGA Republicans" agreed that "Israel's war is America's war" while only 20 percent wanted the country to remain on the sidelines. "I don't think Trump's going to send soldiers over there," said Sisk, the Virginia supporter interviewed by AFP. "I don't think he's gonna get us involved in the war, just like he said." © 2025 AFP
LeMonde
an hour ago
- LeMonde
Iran attacks US military base in Qatar
Iran launched a missile attack Monday, June 23, on US military bases in Qatar and Iraq, retaliating for the American bombing of its nuclear sites and escalating tensions in the volatile region. Iran announced on state television that it had attacked American forces stationed at Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base. A caption on screen called it "a mighty and successful response" to "America's aggression" as martial music played. Qatar said it had successfully intercepted the attack. It came shortly after Qatar closed its airspace as a precaution amid threats from Iran. Iran also targeted the Ain al-Assad base housing US troops in western Iraq, an Iraqi security official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Just before the explosions, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X: "We neither initiated the war nor seeking it. But we will not leave invasion to the great Iran without answer." In the past, Iran has threatened American forces at Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the forward headquarters of the US military's Central Command. Qatar, across the Persian Gulf from Iran, maintains diplomatic relations with Iran and shares a massive offshore natural gas field with Tehran. Earlier in the day, Israel expanded its war against Iran to include targets associated with the country's struggling theocracy, striking the gate of a Tehran prison notorious for holding political activists and hitting the headquarters of the military force that suppressed recent protests. As plumes of thick smoke rose over Tehran, Israel was attacked with yet another barrage of Iranian missiles and drones. The persistent fire has become a reality for civilians in both countries since Israel started the war to target Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program.
