Trump Puts NATO on Edge as Rutte Bets on Charm to Keep US Onside
Donald Trump ensured that NATO's high-stakes summit would be a nervy affair to the end as he flew in to The Hague fueling doubts about whether the US remains fully committed to defending its allies.
The US president was feted as the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by King Willem-Alexander on Tuesday. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who has led a monthslong charm offensive to keep the US onside, went out of his way to underline Trump's leadership of the western alliance.
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Hamilton Spectator
21 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
A whirlwind 48 hours: How Trump's Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement came together
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a 48-hour whirlwind, President Donald Trump veered from elated to indignant to triumphant as his fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement came together, teetered toward collapse and ultimately coalesced. Trump, as he worked to seal the deal, publicly harangued the Israelis and Iranians with a level of pique that's notable even for a commander in chief who isn't shy about letting the world know what he thinks. The effort was helped along as his aides and Qatari allies sensed an opening after what they saw as a half-hearted, face-saving measure by Tehran on Monday to retaliate against the U.S. for strikes against three key nuclear sites. And it didn't hurt that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , after 12 days of bombing, could tell the Israeli public that Iran's nuclear program had been diminished. 'This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn't, and never will!' Trump declared in a social media post announcing the ceasefire. Netanyahu is less than enthusiastic about Trump's message The agreement began taking shape early Sunday morning, soon after the U.S. military carried out blistering strikes on Iranian nuclear sites that U.S. defense officials said have set back Tehran's nuclear program. Trump directed his team to get Netanyahu on the phone. The president told Netanyahu not to expect further U.S. offensive military action, according to a senior White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive diplomatic talks. The U.S. president made the case that it was time to stop the war and return to diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Trump also noted that the U.S. had removed any imminent threat posed by Iran, according to the official. For his part, Netanyahu listened to Trump's argument as Israel was nearing its own objectives with Iran, the official said. Netanyahu did not enthusiastically agree, but understood Trump's stance that the U.S. had no desire for additional military involvement. Around the same time, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff spoke directly with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, telling him to come back to the bargaining table because Iran had seen what the U.S. military could do and that it was capable of doing much more, the official said. Witkoff stressed that the U.S. wanted peace — and Iran should, too. Trump ebullient about Israel-Iran deal prospects Less than 48 hours later, Trump took to his social media platform to announce that a 'Complete and Total CEASEFIRE' had been achieved. The ceasefire was based solely on the end of military hostilities, rather than on additional conditions about Iran's nuclear program or its economic interests. Trump was acting on the belief that Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons had been crippled. But as Trump spoke with confidence about the coming ceasefire, the Israelis and Iranians were notably quiet — neither side publicly commented on what Trump described as a deal that would be phased in over the coming hours. Araghchi spoke out first, acknowledging the wheels were in motion for a deal, but stopping short of saying Iran had signed off. 'As of now, there is NO 'agreement' on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations,' Araghchi posted on X. 'However, provided that the Israeli regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people no later than 4 am Tehran time, we have no intention to continue our response afterwards.' Commitment from Iran and Israel to Trump's ceasefire remained murky Not long before Trump's announcement, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to social media to declare that Iran wouldn't surrender. It was unclear what role Khamenei, the ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic's theocracy, had in the deal. And Netanyahu was silent. He would wait more than eight hours after Trump's announcement to confirm that Israel had accepted the ceasefire and that it had achieved its war goals against Iran. Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said ceasefire efforts gained steam after Iran's retaliatory attack on a major U.S. base in the emirate on Monday evening. The Iranians fired 14 missiles at the base — with U.S. and Qatari defense systems knocking down 13. One of the missiles, according to Trump, was ''set free' because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction.' Trump also claimed the Iranians gave the U.S. and Qatar a heads up, allowing the troops to take shelter and the Qataris to clear their typically busy airspace. Qatar plays a key role in the ceasefire talks Iran's restrained direct response to the U.S. bombardment suggested to Trump administration officials that Iran — battered by Israel's 12-day assault — and its degraded proxy groups, including Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen-based Houthis, didn't have the wherewithal to expand the fight. Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, had a 'long call' with Trump soon after the Iranian attack on the Al-Ubeid military installation, according to the Qatari prime minister. 'There was an opportunity during this communication to announce a full ceasefire on all fronts, and U.S. authorities asked Qatar to contact Iranian authorities to know how prepared they are for a ceasefire,' the prime minister said. Trump saw the moment as a clear opening The president soon got back in touch with Netanyahu to secure his commitment to end the hostilities, officials said. The prime minister agreed to the ceasefire, as long as there were no further attacks by Iran, the officials said. From there, things moved quickly. Vice President JD Vance was making an appearance on Fox News' 'Special Report' on Monday evening when Trump took to social media to announce the ceasefire deal had been reached and would go into effect over the coming day. The vice president appeared surprised when host Bret Baier told him that Trump had announced a deal had been reached. 'We were actually working on that just as I left the White House to come over here,' Vance said. 'So that's good news that the president was able to get that across the finish line.' But after Trump's announcement, the attacks kept coming. Iran launched a series of strikes on Israel after 4 a.m. local time Tuesday in Tehran, the time that Iran's foreign minister had said Iran would cease its attacks if Israel ended their airstrikes. And the Israeli prime minister's office confirmed that Israel launched a major assault hours ahead of the ceasefire's start, hitting central Tehran. 'We attacked forcefully in the heart of Tehran, hitting regime targets and killing hundreds of Basij and Iranian security forces,' the statement read. Iranian media confirmed nine casualties in the northern Gilan province. 'Four residential buildings were completely destroyed and several neighboring houses were damaged in the blasts.' Fars News Agency reported. A frustrated Trump lashes out Trump, who was scheduled to depart the White House early Tuesday to fly to the Netherlands for the NATO summit, was livid. His frustration was palpable as he spoke to reporters on the White House South Lawn. 'I'm not happy with them. I'm not happy with Iran, either, but I'm really unhappy with Israel going out this morning,' Trump said. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f—- they're doing.' Minutes later, he took to his Truth Social platform to send a warning to Israel. 'ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION,' Trump posted. 'BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!' Trump climbed aboard Air Force One and was soon on the phone with Netanyahu. He did not mince words with the Israeli leader, according to one of the White House officials. Trump was 'exceptionally firm and direct' with Netanyahu 'about what needed to happen to sustain the ceasefire.' Netanyahu got the message. His office confirmed that the Israeli leader held off tougher action after the appeal from Trump and 'refrained from additional attacks.' After the call, Trump once again took to social media to declare the ceasefire was 'in effect. ' 'ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran,' Trump declared. 'All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly 'Plane Wave' to Iran, Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!' The president went on to spend a considerable chunk of his flight celebrating what his administration is calling a signal achievement. 'It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!' On Tuesday evening, Trump's envoy Witkoff said the president is now looking to land 'a comprehensive peace agreement that goes beyond even the ceasefire.' 'We're already talking to each other, not just directly, but also through interlocutors,' Witkoff said in an appearance on Fox News' 'The Ingraham Angle.' 'I think that the conversations are promising.' ___ AP writers Darlene Superville in Washington, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed reporting. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. 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Time Magazine
24 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
J.D. Vance Defines the ‘Trump Doctrine'
First, the U.S. denied involvement in Israel's strikes against Iran. Then President Donald Trump took credit for them. Trump insisted he wasn't working toward a ceasefire and would take two weeks to consider attacking Iran. Then he bombed Iran's nuclear facilities two days later and, two days after that, announced a ceasefire. His top officials said they were not seeking 'regime change,' then he said: why not? before declaring yesterday that regime change causes 'chaos' and he doesn't want that. Some supporters say he's a master of misdirection. Critics liken it to 'schizophrenia.' J.D. Vance calls it the Trump Doctrine. 'We are seeing a foreign policy doctrine develop that will change the country (and the world) for the better,' the Vice President posted on X on Tuesday, before giving a more detailed elucidation of a foreign-policy approach Trump himself has often distilled into the three-word phrase 'peace through strength.' 'What I call the Trump doctrine is quite simple,' Vance elaborated at the Ohio Republican Dinner on Tuesday night. 'No. 1, you articulate a clear American interest, and that's—in this case—that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. No. 2, you try to aggressively diplomatically solve that problem. And No. 3, when you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.' Former President James Monroe is credited with starting the trend of presidential doctrines, the core principles underlying a President's foreign policy. The Monroe Doctrine, according to the Office of the Historian at the State Department, focused on three main pillars: 'separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization, and non-intervention.' Since then, numerous Presidents have outlined their own doctrines, though rarely as explicitly as Vance has done for Trump. Observers struggled to interpret Joe Biden's doctrine. Following Trump's first-term 'America First' withdrawal from global forums, some suggested Biden hinted at his own doctrine in a line from a Washington Post op-ed before his first foreign trip to Europe in 2021: 'realizing America's renewed commitment to our allies and partners, and demonstrating the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats of this new age.' In a Foreign Affairs article titled 'What Was the Biden Doctrine?' published in August, former Carnegie Endowment for International Peace president Jessica T. Matthews wrote that 'four years is too little time to establish a foreign policy doctrine' but that Biden's approach seemed 'to eschew wars to remake other countries and to restore diplomacy as the central tool of foreign policy…proving that the United States can be deeply engaged in the world without military action or the taint of hegemony.' For Barack Obama, many distilled his foreign-policy outlook to 'don't do stupid sh-t,' a guiding principle that some critics called overly simplistic and naive and supporters described as appropriately cautious given a history of costly, hubristic U.S. interventions abroad. 'The Obama Doctrine is a form of realism unafraid to deploy American power but mindful that its use must be tempered by practical limits and a dose of self-awareness,' wrote Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. in 2009. TIME described George W. Bush's doctrine in 2007 as putting 'a primary emphasis on the projection of American military power.' Syndicated conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer first tried to define the Bush Doctrine in June 2001, before 9/11, as a 'new unilateralism' that 'seeks to enhance American power and unashamedly deploy it on behalf of self-defined global ends.' After 9/11, observers often pointed to a National Security Strategy document released by the White House in 2002 that emphasized combatting terrorism as central to U.S. foreign policy. 'We will defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants,' it said. 'We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. … America will hold to account nations that are compromised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists—because the allies of terror are the enemies of civilization.' Bill Clinton's doctrine is often pinned to a line from a speech he delivered in San Francisco in 1999, when he said: 'The United States has the opportunity and, I would argue, the solemn responsibility to shape a more peaceful, prosperous, democratic world in the 21st century. … We cannot, indeed, we should not, do everything or be everywhere. But where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must be prepared to do so.' While Vice President Vance has helpfully spelled out the Trump Doctrine, some observers had already seen it starting to become clear. Foreign Policy columnist Matthew Kroenig outlined in April a similar three-pillar worldview that underlies the President's seemingly erratic and unpredictable foreign-policy approach: 1) America First; 2) stop America from being ripped off—from trade to immigration to NATO; and 3) escalate to deescalate. 'As Trump writes in The Art of the Deal, his preferred negotiating strategy revolves around making threats and extreme demands to throw one's negotiating partner off balance and ultimately bring them crawling to the table for a deal,' Kroenig wrote of the third pillar in what turned out to be a remarkably prescient analysis of Trump's handling of the Israel-Iran war. Whether the Trump Doctrine, which is certainly disruptive to some, is ultimately successful in changing the U.S. and the world for the better, however, is a question that remains to be answered.
Bloomberg
34 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
US: Strikes Didn't Destroy Iran's Nuclear Program, EU Tariff Threat, UK's China Imports Jump
Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes. On today's podcast: (1) American airstrikes had only a limited impact on Iran's nuclear program, according to early US intelligence findings, as the United Nations watchdog urged fresh inspection of the sites. (2) Donald Trump ensured that NATO's high-stakes summit would be a nervy affair to the end as he flew in to The Hague fueling doubts about whether the US remains fully committed to defending its allies. (3) The European Union plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports, including on Boeing aircraft, if President Donald Trump puts a baseline levy on the bloc's goods as many expect. (4) Chinese companies are ramping up shipments to Britain to levels not seen in years, a possible sign that the Asian factory powerhouse is finding export markets unimpeded by high tariffs like those President Donald Trump has imposed. (5) Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had plenty of opportunities Tuesday to tell lawmakers definitively the central bank will cut interest rates soon. He didn't take any of them. (6) Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded to his upstart rival Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary in the race to become mayor of New York City after the 33-year-old Queens lawmaker racked up commanding leads across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.
