THE HAGUE — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte cracked the code for a successful leaders’ summit involving President Donald Trump: Call him “daddy.”
Add to that a significantly slimmed-down schedule that was long on praise for the president — Rutte’s “daddy” was intended as a compliment for intervening in the fighting between Israel and Iran — and short on existential questions like how alliance members will fund their most significant spending increase since the end of the Cold War.
It was a world away from Trump’s 2018 visit to the NATO summit in Brussels. Then, he started by shoving Montenegro’s Prime Minister Duško Marković out of his way before a group photo and ended by demanding a last-minute emergency meeting where he threatened to withdraw American support for the alliance unless members spent more.
The worries about Trump’s mood coming into the summit this year fell away slowly — and then all at once — as the president and his secretaries of state and defense made the rounds here with no blowups, no overt demands, all while allies promised to do more.
And by changing tack from confrontation to flattery, European officials think they’re finally starting to get Trump to come around on NATO.
“We are taking the approach of talking to Trumpworld and MAGA,” said one European diplomat who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss relations with the president. “It’s not just sucking up to the Americans. It’s not just that we’re doing all of this to please the Americans.”
“The vibes were good.” the diplomat added. “Even with the chaos he’s causing, we have to give him credit. This is the Trump effect.”
Throughout the roughly 24 hours Trump was on the ground in The Hague, European leaders went out of their way to please him. At dinner, top diplomats praised the president for brokering the ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Dutch King Willem-Alexander offered to let the U.S. president stay at his palace — an offer he took up. And by doing away with lengthy communiqués and additional topical sessions, NATO organizers avoided getting bogged down in potential squabbles over the details.
That treatment was repaid in Trump’s press conference that wrapped up the summit on Wednesday, where he praised Rutte and the allies he met.
In a sharp turn from previous caustic comments about the alliance, Trump said that NATO is “not a ripoff, they really love their countries.”
Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy and Trump also came together Wednesday for what one Ukrainian adviser said was an hour-long meeting that “went well.” It’s an assessment few could have predicted after Trump and Vice President JD Vance attacked the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office in February.
Zelenskyy, who has made a trademark of his tactical-style clothing since the Russian invasion, even donned a black suit after being mocked by a conservative media figure in that disastrous White House meeting for an outfit that wasn’t respectful enough.
The Spanish exception
Spain’s last-minute objection to the group’s pledge to spend 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2035, however, laid bare the simmering tensions beneath the surface that organizers had bent over backward to avoid.
Lashing out at the southern European nation in a press briefing before flying back to Washington, Trump called Spain’s stance “terrible” and threatened Madrid with paying twice as much in tariffs. It was not clear how Trump would make good on his pledge given that Spain is part of the 27-nation European Union, which negotiates as a bloc.
Right now, the United States and the EU are engaged in intensive negotiations aimed at reducing or eliminating Trump’s threat to impose a 50 percent tariff on European goods in exchange for the EU lowering its tariffs and making other reforms to open its market to more American goods and services.
Frustrations about Trump’s stance on trade toward Europe still boiled over at times, with French President Emmanuel Macron remarking on the incongruity of the U.S. demanding that allies spend more on defense while squeezing their economies with tariffs. Similarly, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vented about trade talks between Washington and Brussels, stating that they’re “too complicated.”
But those notes of discord were largely drowned out by the striking harmony of this streamlined summit.
To get Trump to learn to love NATO, allies had to make some sacrifices. The summit’s final communiqué was just five paragraphs, down from 38 last year. Ukraine, which got pledges of billions of dollars in aid from NATO nations and an affirmation that its path into the alliance was “irreversible” at the Washington summit in 2024, was a mere footnote.
But NATO leaders also promised to incorporate military aid for Ukraine into their defense budgets, which both solidifies help for Kyiv while goosing the European push toward spending 5 percent of their GDP on defense, a number demanded by Trump.
The president appears to be fine with that tactic, leading some allies to see the 5 percent as the goal, with the messy details less of a concern.
“We’re getting there. Countries are being creative in addressing the issue. Without infrastructure and investment in industry, militaries can’t do what they need to do,” a second European official said.
In private, not everyone was pleased and key priorities were left unaddressed. After Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently rebuffed Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to its war with Ukraine, many European leaders hoped to convince Trump now is the time to impose more sanctions.
Others questioned whether the brown-nosing obscured deeper fractures — including disagreements about the severity of the threat from Russia, the ability of NATO countries to live up to their defense spending pledges and Ukraine falling through the cracks.
“Was this the worst NATO Summit ever?” Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielus Landsbergis said in a social media post as the summit wrapped. “[I]t could have been much worse. For example, we might not have NATO anymore. But we still do. So, technically, yay.”
Landsbergis also criticized Rutte’s kowtowing toward Trump. “I cannot find the words to describe the communication chosen by the Secretary General,” he said. “I feel I might speak for a significant part of Europeans — it’s tasteless.”
Tip-toeing around Trump
Few others were willing to go on the record to criticize Trump.
“I would say that this summit is a real show of unity,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský on the sidelines of the meeting. “I have not heard a single word from any American official which would make me uncomfortable. I heard quite a lot of statements from Marco Rubio and President Trump which attested to the fact that they believe in NATO, which means Article 5.”
Though Trump has for years lashed out at the NATO alliance and questioned U.S. commitment to its bedrock Article 5 mutual defense clause while en route to the summit, he said nearly 24 hours at The Hague made an impression.
“I came here because it was something I’m supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit differently,” Trump said. “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 anything like it.”
“They want to protect their country and they need the United States,” Trump added. “And without the United States, it’s not going to be the same.”
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