NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte laid on the praise for President Donald Trump on Thursday as the two met in the Oval Office at a time when the president’s comments have raised doubts about his commitment to the transatlantic alliance and its mutual defense treaty.
Rutte welcomed Trump’s efforts to get fellow members of the alliance to step up their defense spending and told the president, “I think they want to work together with you in the run-up to the next summit to make sure that we will have a NATO, which is newly invigorated under your leadership.”
Rutte played up the European Commission's call this month for 800 billion euros ($874 billion) in new defense spending by the 27-member bloc, and mentioned recent commitments from the United Kingdom and Germany to surge spending on security in those countries.
“What’s happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering,” said Rutte, while acknowledging there is still more the alliance can do.
Rutte comments come after Trump last week lashed out at members for not meeting a spending target of 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.
The U.S. president even raised doubt about the United States' commitment to the mutual defense statute in the NATO's founding treaty that states an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all.
Last year, NATO’s outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a record 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations had hit the military alliance’s defense spending target.
Trump on Thursday once again claimed credit for more countries meeting the spending target because of threats he made during his first term, while stressing that the 2% of GDP threshold is too low. Stoltenberg himself has said Trump was responsible for getting other nations to increase their spending.
“I just said, we’re not going to be involved with you if you’re not going to pay,” Trump recalled Thursday. “And the money started pouring in and they all became much stronger because of my actions.”
The two leaders were also discussing a U.S. proposal to reach a 30-day ceasefire in Russia's grinding invasion of Ukraine.
Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow on Thursday meeting with senior officials to discuss the proposal.
Trump offered guarded optimism about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement earlier Thursday that he was, in principle, open to a ceasefire if certain conditions were met.
Trump reiterated that he stood ready to speak with Putin, but underscored that it was time to end the war.
“He (Putin) put out a very promising statement but it wasn’t complete,” Trump said. “Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia’s there. And if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world.”
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