‘Daddy' Trump takes centre stage as Nato bows to his demands

Times

25-06-2025

President Trump, the 'daddy', as Mark Rutte, Nato's secretary-general, now refers to him, awoke on Wednesday after a night in the Huis ten Bosch palace, nestled in a forest on the edge of The Hague, in an 'excellent mood'.
For the diplomats, who had tailored the entirety of the Nato summit to Trump's limited attention span and the need to avoid unscripted outbursts, it was a good sign for the day ahead.
'The day begins in the beautiful Netherlands. The King and Queen are beautiful and spectacular people,' he posted on Truth Social after breakfast with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima. 'Our breakfast meeting was great! Now it's off to the very important Nato meetings. The USA will be very well represented!'
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At the World Forum where the summit was taking place, the popcorn was already out. 'I think I'm going to cancel my subscription to Netflix because reality is much more interesting,' one senior Nato diplomat said before the day had begun.
On Sunday, four days earlier, the US president had stunned allies by launching an attack on Iran's nuclear sites using 30,000lb bunker busting bombs and two dozen BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles. Officials were anxious in the days leading up to the event that Trump would cancel his trip to Europe.
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To ensure he turned up, Rutte, known as the Trump 'whisperer' for his ability to smooth over tensions between the US president and allies, had pulled out all the stops. 'Truly extraordinary', 'daring' and a 'big success' were among the gushing epithets in a caps-filled message from Rutte to Trump as he prepared to board Air Force One on Tuesday.
'Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran,' Rutte wrote in the personal message leaked by Trump.
'You are now flying to another great success in the Hague,' he added, as Nato prepared to sign up to a historic target of 5 per cent of GDP on military and defence-related spending. 'It wasn't easy, but we got them all to 5 per cent. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your success!'
On the flight across the Atlantic, Trump questioned whether the US would automatically come to the aid of European allies under the alliance's Article 5 mutual defence clause.
'Depends on your definition,' he told reporters travelling on Air Force One. 'There's numerous definitions of Article 5, you know that, right? But I'm committed to being their friends.' Such remarks did little to ease the anxiety of member states on Nato's eastern border, worried Russia might invade if the security guarantee falls apart.
When Air Force One landed and Trump emerged on Tuesday night, donning his white USA baseball cap, Nato diplomats breathed a temporary sigh of relief.
'Until I see him, I won't believe he is there,' one senior military figure inside the alliance said two hours before he touched down.
Trump was whisked away in his motorcade along closed off motorways for a dinner with other alliance leaders hosted by Willem-Alexander.
Trump had the seat of honour next to Willem-Alexander with Giorgia Meloni, Italy's populist prime minister, sitting on his other side. Out of all of Europe's leaders, Meloni is closest to Trump politically and has close links to his Maga movement.
They dined on charred tuna and a mousse of Amsterdam pickles, marinated vegetables, chive cream and crispy onion. For the main course they had veal fillet, chanterelle mushroom sauce, asparagus, legumes and pommes Paolo, followed by a chocolate tart with Tonka beans, soft caramel and vanilla sauce. At the royal dinner Trump met the successor to the Dutch throne, Catharina-Amalia, the Princess of Orange.
Willem-Alexander and Maxima do not often invite guests to Huis ten Bosch as they live there themselves and see it as a family home. But Trump delights in the pomp and circumstance of royal places and his overnight stay in the ornate 1645 royal palace, rather than his initial plan to stay in a beachside hotel 19 miles away, was seen as a diplomatic triumph.
Not far away, at the World Forum, Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, was due to open the dinner for defence ministers with a speech, but he said he would rather speak at the end.
John Healey, the defence secretary, who wished he had a pint of beer for the meal rather than the offerings of wine, explained: 'First of all, he was slated to speak first. He said, 'no', I'd rather speak at the end.
'He put aside his scripted speech, and what he did was a reflection and a sum-up of the discussion.'
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Healey described Hegseth as 'smart' and 'not worried about having his own views'.
'He's got a clear view of what he wants to do with defence and also of how he wants to amplify the challenge that Trump has made to Nato.' After finishing his vanilla, strawberry and chocolate mousse, Hegseth told his counterpart that he recognised tonight that 'nations have stepped up and the 5 per cent benchmark that we're going to agree tomorrow is really historic'.
'All the Nato defence ministers, including me, recognise actually it's down to us now to do the hard yards, not just in ten years time, for turning that into delivery,' Healey added.
As Trump arrived at the venue on Wednesday his convoy, flying the Dutch flag and the Stars and Stripes, was ushered into a special enclosure built especially for the Americans out of the public gaze.
Footage showed blue Nato doors being slammed shut around the presidential 'Cadillac One' known as the 'Beast' so he could enter in private.
In a press conference ahead of a two and half hour meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the principal political decision-making body of Nato, the US president compared Iran and Israel to 'two kids in a school yard'.
In a long, rambling defence of his strikes against Iran, Trump boasted that he had stopped the longstanding conflict between Israel and Iran.
'They're not going to be fighting each other. They've had it. They've had a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know? They fight like hell,' he said.
Interrupting him, Rutte said: 'Daddy sometimes has to use strong language.' The comment was a reference to Trump's outburst that the two countries 'don't know what the f*** they're doing' on Tuesday.
Trump agreed, saying: 'Yes, you have to use a certain word.' For some, Rutte had gone too far.
British government sources described the American mood as 'jubilant'. 'They're doing a victory lap and you can see why,' one said. But the source also said the Americans acknowledged how hard they had been on other Nato allies. 'They did seem to recognise they'd been playing quite hardball.'
Officials said it was difficult to hold discussions with the US delegation when Trump could change his mind on an issue at any moment.
'Even when you're speaking to the closest members of his team, even at secretary of state level, it's not that people are lying to you but you need to be aware that if the president wakes up and reads something that makes him change direction, they won't always know what is coming,' one diplomat said.
But overall, another said: 'The mood is good.'
Ahead of Wednesday's meeting allies had been told that rather than speaking at the beginning of the session as is conventional, Trump 'wants to have the last word'. No one was going to stop him.
In a press conference afterwards, Rutte brushed off a suggestion that his gushing praise of 'daddy' might be seen as weak, adding that his remarks were a 'question of taste'. 'He's a good friend,' he said of Trump. 'Doesn't he deserve some praise?'
Trump said allies in the meeting 'were so respectful of me … it was really moving'. He said there had been a 'great victory' with allies agreeing to spend 5 per cent of national income on security.
'Almost everyone of them said thank God for the United States,' he said.