THE HAGUEOn Wednesday, President Donald Trump will meet with members of NATO, an organization he has manipulated over the years and whose members are alarmed by his recent remarks that call into question the United States’ commitment to its mutual defense pledges.
“The new and fragile Iran-Israel ceasefire that Trump helped broker after the U.S. unloaded airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as well as Trump’s remarks on the way to the Netherlands that his fidelity to Article 5 depends on your definition,” are expected to garner attention at the NATO summit.
At the same time, the alliance is ready to implement one of Trump’s top demands for NATO: a commitment from its member nations to raise their defense budgets, sometimes dramatically.
Trump stated on Tuesday, “I told you that you would have to pay because NATO was broke.” And now they’re paying a lot because we did the entire thing. I then advised you to raise it to either 4% or 5%, with 5% being preferable.
Trump declared, “It’s good to spend 5% of a country’s gross domestic product on defense because it gives them much more power.”
The increase in funding comes after Trump complained for years that other nations weren’t contributing fairly to an alliance that was formed to protect against Soviet-era threats. With the notable exception of Spain, the majority of NATO nations are getting ready to support the 5% vow, maybe to appease Trump as much as to strengthen their own defenses in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump implied that he might not always follow the NATO treaty’s Article 5 mutual defense commitments as president. Although the alliance did so during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he expressed doubt in March of this year that NATO would defend the United States if necessary.
Whether he is dedicated to Article 5 depends on your meaning, he told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday as he traveled to The Hague for the conference.
Article 5 is defined in a variety of ways. I assume you are aware of that. Trump stated. However, I’m determined to be friends with them. He indicated that once he arrived at the peak, he would provide a clearer explanation of what Article 5 meant to him.
Before departing Washington, Trump also blasted Israel and Iran for their behavior following his declared ceasefire in an interview with reporters. According to him, both parties had broken the fledgling pact.
Following Trump’s arrival in the Netherlands, news organizations, such as The Associated Press, released reports indicating that, contrary to Trump’s claims, a U.S. intelligence report indicated in an early assessment that Iran’s nuclear program had only been set back a few months by weekend strikes and was not entirely destroyed.
“Any reporting that the strikes weren’t completely destroyed was an attempt to denigrate one of the most successful military strikes in history,” the White House declared, and Trump wrote in all caps on social media early Wednesday.
Trump indicated he was expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while in The Hague, but the White House has not disclosed which other international leaders he would meet with one-on-one.
