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President Donald Trump, fresh off announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, is off to The Hague, Netherlands for the yearly summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a conference where he’s hoping to drum up another foreign policy win by pushing European leaders to increase defense spending.
The president is expected to land in the Netherlands on Tuesday and return to the White House on Wednesday.
It’s Trump’s first NATO summit since becoming president for a second term. In the past, he’s railed against NATO members for “freeloading” off U.S. military protection. This time, European allies are eager to prove him wrong.
NATO reached an agreement for all nations to boost their defense spending to five percent of their gross domestic product, except Spain.
Trump initially made the demand, which is expected to be finalized at the summit.
“This summit is really about NATO’s credibility, and we are urging all of our Allies to step up to the plate and pay their fair share for transatlantic security,” U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said.
Spain complicated the consensus when Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez demanded an exemption from the new spending target – which would be a sharp increase from the 2 percent target Spain has had trouble meeting.
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“We fully respect the legitimate desire of other countries to increase their defence investment, but we are not going to do it,” Sanchez said.
Trump is expected to meet with Rutte and other world leaders and hold a press conference. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to attend, continuing his push for Ukraine’s admission into the alliance and its collective defense pact.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte boasted that allies were “stepping up to equal sharing of responsibility for our shared security.”
Trump has said he does not think the U.S. needs to hit the 5% target. “I don’t think we should, but I think they should,” he told reporters last week.
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The President’s time at the summit will be brief, spending approximately 24 hours on the ground. His meetings “will focus on issues of shared concern and reaffirm the United States strong ties with our allies and partners,” according to an administration official.
But they come after Trump can boast of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
“It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Rutte has suggested NATO would stand behind the U.S. after Iran launched a counterstrike on its air base in Qatar, following American attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites.
“My biggest fear would be for Iran to own and be able to use a nuclear weapon,” Rutte told reporters ahead of the summit.
He defended the U.S. strikes on Iran after being asked about parallels between the U.S. and Russia when it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“This is a consistent position of NATO: Iran should not have its hands on a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I would not agree that this is against international law — what the U.S. did.”
Rutte had wanted the summit to be a show of NATO unity to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. But conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran makes the conference less predictable.
The Iraq War in 2003 deeply divided NATO: France and Germany were opposed to the invasion while Britain and Spain joined the coalition forces.
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