How Donald Trump finally learned to love NATO — for now
WASHINGTON — It will go down as the summit where U.S. President Donald Trump learned to stop worrying and love NATO.
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Trump revelled in gushing praise from leaders in The Hague — including being called 'daddy' by alliance chief Mark Rutte — and a pledge to boost defense spending as he had demanded.
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But it went further than just lapping up flattery. Trump also spoke of what sounded like an almost religious conversion to NATO, after years of bashing other members as freeloaders and threatening to leave.
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'I came here because it was something I'm supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit differently,' Trump said at his closing press conference on Wednesday.
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'I watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I've never seen quite anything like it.
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'It was really moving to see it.'
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A day after returning to the White House, Trump still sounded uncharacteristically touchy-feely about his time with his 31 NATO counterparts.
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'A wonderful day with incredible and caring Leaders,' he posted on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.
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Trump repeatedly berated allies as not paying up and threatened to pull the United States out of NATO as part of his wider disdain for international institutions and alliances.
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At his first summit in 2017 in Brussels, Trump memorably shoved aside Montenegro's prime minister Dusko Markovic as he made his way to the front of the stage.
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A year later Trump publicly lambasted Germany and privately talked about wanting to quit.
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But this time NATO leaders had carefully choreographed the trip. They massaged the numbers to give Trump the defense spending deal he craved.
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And while Trump headed to the summit dropping F-bombs in frustration at a shaky Iran-Israel ceasefire, NATO leaders love-bombed him from the moment he arrived.
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The Netherlands put him up overnight in the Dutch king's royal palace and gave him a royal dinner and breakfast — 'beautiful,' according to Trump — while NATO organizers kept the summit deliberately short.
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Frederick Kempe, the chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council, said Trump had 'waxed poetic' about NATO in a way he had never done before.
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