In The Hague, the Nato summit waits for Donald Trump – and no one more so than the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte. “You are flying into another big success,” Rutte wrote in a text on Tuesday, one of several released shortly afterwards by a hyperactive Trump as he travelled across the Atlantic in Air Force One.
The sycophantic messages from the Dutchman had compared Nato’s plan to dramatically increase defence spending to the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend: “Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do.”
That tone underlined how keen the head of the alliance and most other western allies are to ensure the summit passes off well, knowing full well that Trump’s commitment to Nato has been unpredictable – and that every step has to be taken to keep the freewheeling US president on message.
Meanwhile, as Air Force One flew over the Atlantic to the Dutch capital, it did not take Trump long to drift off message. Would, the president was asked, the US abide by Nato’s article 5 guarantee that says that if one member of the alliance is attacked, it is considered as an attack on all, and other allies should take the actions deemed necessary to assist the country attacked?
“Depends on your definition,” Trump said. “There’s numerous definitions of article 5, you know that, right? But I’m committed to being their friends.” The president was asked to explain this watery response, prompting him to say he was “committed to saving lives” and “committed to life and safety”, before adding that he did not want to elaborate while flying.
At the 2018 summit during his first term, Trump hinted that the US might leave Nato, but at this year’s specially shortened get-together, every step has been taken to ensure that he is in an upbeat mood and supportive of the military alliance that the US contributes so much to and Europe has benefited so much from.
The US president flew in the early evening for a leaders’ dinner held at Paleis Huis ten Bosch, the royal palace and a home of King Willem-Alexander. But in a change announced at the last minute, it emerged that Trump would be staying there overnight, not at the Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin in Noordwijk as planned, and would be breakfasting with the Dutch monarch.
Over the past few months, Rutte has been negotiating directly with Trump and other Nato leaders to persuade the alliance’s 32 members to agree what amounts in most cases to a substantial hike in defence spending, lifting core military budgets to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, reaching 5% when an extra 1.5% of related spending on cyber, intelligence and infrastructure is factored in.
One Nato military leader praised Rutte’s diplomatic skills. “The way he has handled Trump has been brilliant, from the moment he went to visit him in Mar-a-Lago,” he said, referring to a trip made in November last year, when Trump was still president-elect. It was a deal, he said, that had been hammered out between the two before, country by country, almost every Nato member was brought around.
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On Monday, Rutte was circumspect when asked about how he managed to work with Trump and bring him on board with the plan, or his role in trying to make the summit a success. “I’m holding the gavel. I opened the meeting, I closed the meeting, and in the meantime, I travel a lot between allies and talk and discuss,” he said.
The tone of the texts, however, reveal the reality of the Rutte approach – perhaps the only one calculated to bring success. “It was not easy but we’ve got them all signed onto 5%!” he wrote to Trump. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win. Safe travels and see you at His Majesty’s dinner.”
After Tuesday’s dinner, on Wednesday there will be a cut-down summit, with a single two-and-a-half-hour meeting where Trump and other leaders will sign off a short communique of a handful of paragraphs that will confirm the 5% deal. The hope is that Trump – flushed also with a feeling of success after the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites – will be pro-Nato in private and again at the mid-afternoon press conference.
But some unhappy diplomats in The Hague worry that there could yet be a row with Spain. Though its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said he would not block the 5% commitment, he has insisted that Spain can meet its Nato responsibilities by spending less: 2.1% of GDP. Of the dozen or so social media postings Trump made from the flight, one was a media graphic headlined: “Spain threatens to derail summit.”
