NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is meeting US President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday to address his resentment with European allies over their refusal to join the Iran war.
With the crunch NATO leaders’ summit coming in July, sources tell Euronews Rutte will be on a charm offensive, armed with details of record defence spending across the alliance in response to Trump’s exacting demands that Europeans pay more toward their own security.
He’ll also point to positive activity in the US jobs market as defence production increases to meet new demand from Europe and Canada.
“The charts will be written in bold, golden and red font and will show Trump how much of a great leader he is,” said a source. “Rutte will show Trump how his influence at NATO has led to allies reaching $1 trillion in spending overall.”
Rutte is well-practised in using flattery to keep Trump onside. At last year’s summit, he notoriously referred to Trump as “daddy” in the context of Trump’s management of conflict in the Middle East.
At a NATO meeting of defence ministers in Brussels last week, Rutte said European allies and Canada have together spent historic new sums on defence.
“European allies and Canada are really stepping up with record increases last year, over $90 billion extra in real terms compared to last year,” he told journalists at a press conference at NATO HQ.
“That’s incredible,” he said, while acknowledging that “you will still find allies holding back a little bit and needing to do more”.
Allies are meeting for the annual summit in Ankara on 7-8 July, where the agenda will focus heavily on allies spending on European and Arctic Security as well as the need to vastly increase defence production.
The US is expecting to see evidence of NATO countries’ commitment to increasing defence spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2035, following an agreement to raise the spending threshold that was struck at last year’s summit in the Hague.
Rutte will meet Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Oval Office at 15:30 EST on Wednesday. He will also meet with members of Congress and CIA officials over the course of his two-day visit.
‘Stupid thing to say’
Euronews has learned that the final declaration or conclusions due to be published at the end of the July summit don’t yet commit to another such meeting in 2027. NATO officials, including Rutte, are said to be reconsidering future of the annual event in a bid to avoid high-profile bruisings from a belligerent Trump administration.
Albania is due to host the summit in 2027, but sources say the event may be moved if the country does not show progress towards surpassing the alliance’s defence spending threshold of 2 percent of GDP. But other members such as Spain, Italy, and Czechia are also seen as “laggards”, with Belgium only recently meeting the spending target.
On Monday, Trump threatened to withhold military assistance under NATO’s collective defence doctrine to countries who rejected calls to help the US in it war in Iran.
“We spent all of this money. And then when we want to maybe have help on small stuff… They say no we would rather not help,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Stupid thing to say, because we can say that to them if we want, and we might.”
Trump is still fuming at European countries for what he claims is their failure to adequately support the US during its war in Iran. Some NATO allies refused to allow US forces to land at naval and military bases en route to the Middle East. In the early days of the war, Spain announced it would restrict US aircraft from using its airspace as part of the war; the UK initially refused access, but relented soon after for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile targets.
The Pentagon has since announced a suite of measures effectively reducing the US long term participation in the alliance. After German Chancellor Frederic Merz publicly criticised the US-Israeli military strategy in Iran as “ill-conceived”, Trump told NATO he was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany.
And at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels last week, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid into his counterparts from the other 31 allies, calling their countries “shameful” for refusing to join or support the campaign.
Hegseth announced a 6-month review of US military deployments in Europe, with drastic cuts expected. He also threatened to pull funding from NATO’s budget as retribution for some countries not paying their share.
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