NATO chief Mark Rutte pulled out all the stops to ensure that U.S. President Donald Trump went home satisfied. The only question is whether the Trump of today will still be the same in a few months.
Rutte went very deep and very publicly on his knees. “Europe will pay HUGE,” the Secretary-General texted Trump on Tuesday, as the U.S. President was on his way to the NATO summit in The Hague. “And it will be your victory.”
It is, to say the least, rather remarkable that such a text ends up on the street. Thanks to the recipient himself, no less. The content also provides a special insight into diplomacy at the very highest level. It is flattery in top gear. At the summit, there was also talk of sucking up.
There was also quite a bit at stake. The European NATO countries and Canada must pay tens of billions more to divide the costs of the alliance somewhat fairly. The Americans have been paying much more for decades.
Trump is not the first president to make a point of this, but he is the first to get something done about it. The countries have pledged that by 2035 they will spend 5 percent of the size of their economy on defense. Now that standard is 2 percent.
‘Doesn’t Trump deserve praise?’
A success that you can partly attribute to Rutte’s appeasement. That’s how he’s been working for years. It’s pretty much his second nature.
Like briefly letting a German journalist in a packed room know that you know him. Or going down on your knees to a woman who has to sit on the floor so she can use her laptop (see photo below). A friend to all. If Rutte doesn’t like you, you’ll never know, people from his circle swear.
The question now is whether he went too far this time. Isn’t it a bit humiliating and doesn’t it make you look weak? “No,” said Rutte. “It’s a matter of taste.”
Moreover, he emphasizes, there were about eight countries that were planning to reach the old NATO standard of 2 percent sometime around 2030. That is now happening much faster under pressure from Trump. “Doesn’t he deserve praise then?”, Rutte asks back.
The praise clearly appealed to Trump. As we are also used to from him. Trump likes to claim the success of the new NATO standard with his characteristic false modesty. “People came up to me and said, ‘This is thanks to you.’ Well, I don’t know if I did it. But I think I did.”
‘People thought the Russians were very friendly’
This step, which Trump and Rutte called “historic,” pushed another concern more into the background. Trump said a day earlier that there are “multiple definitions” of Article 5 of NATO.
Article 5 means that an attack on one is an attack on all. This makes it the most important deterrent of the alliance. If doubts arise about this, it will have major consequences.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky added another layer on Tuesday. He stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack a NATO member within five years. Are the member states then prepared to go to war?
In short, it is not so strange that the government leaders mainly talked about this when they arrived on Wednesday morning. Estonia, which borders Russia, is very aware of those dangers. “We know Putin,” said Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal.
“Russia has shown what it is capable of. The Baltic States have known this for a long time. No one believed us. People thought the Russians were very friendly and drinking tea. But they are now occupying Ukraine.”
Conversation with Zelensky ‘couldn’t have been better’
Trump may have flown back in good spirits, but the question is how long that will remain so. Due to his capriciousness, that could be completely outdated in a few months.
In February, he still wiped the floor with Zelensky in the White House, and Putin was the laughing third. Geopolitically, that was a major upheaval.
But in The Hague, Trump had another meeting with the Ukrainian president. Trump now dismissed that argument with: “We had a bit of a difficult time with him.” The conversation went well now. It couldn’t have been “better,” Trump said. “He is fighting a brave battle.”
Rutte: ‘Trump is a good friend’
The question for Rutte is how long the effect of his appeasement will last. How do you know for sure that the Trump with whom you have now made a deal is the same Trump for the rest of his presidency? After all, he would have previously threatened to blow up the unity of NATO.
Rutte was of course not sure of that. So he stuck to words about Trump that he could at least substantiate for himself. That he has known Trump for ten years now, that he is a good friend and that he trusts him. “A man of strength, but also a man of peace.”
That’s how Rutte managed to appease him here again.