President Trump offered robust support for Europe and a rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the NATO Summit in The Hague on Wednesday, capping a visit that came as a relief to anxious allies across the continent.
The gathering was designed by NATO leadership to appease the president, and it delivered, with nearly all members of the transatlantic alliance agreeing to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — a historic increase that had been a priority to Trump for several years.
“We’re with them all the way,” Trump said of NATO, sitting alongside its secretary general, Mark Rutte. He later added to reporters, “if I didn’t stand with it, why would I be here?”
Rutte was obsequious throughout the visit, at one point referring to Trump as “daddy” disciplining childlike nations at war with one another. But addressing reporters, he defended his praise of the president as well-earned.
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“When it comes to making more investments, I mean, would you ever think this would be the result of this summit, if he would not have been reelected president?” Rutte said. “Do you really think that seven or eight countries who said, ‘Somewhere in the 2030s, we might make the 2%,’ would have all decided in the last four or five months to get to 2%? So doesn’t he deserve some praise?”
While at the summit, the president faced repeated questioning over the success of U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, which were designed to supplement an Israeli campaign to effectively end Iran’s uranium enrichment program. But Trump expressed confidence in the mission, stating that intelligence continues to come in supporting the conclusion that its facilities were “obliterated.”
“It’s been obliterated, totally obliterated,” he said. “We’ve collected additional intelligence. We’ve also spoken to people that have seen the site, and the site is obliterated.”
An initial Defense Intelligence Agency report, first reported by CNN, cast doubt on that conclusion. But an Israeli official speaking with The Times said that its preliminary findings from an on-the-ground assessment gives them confidence that the program has been set back by several years.
“You can see that the intelligence was very high quality in the execution of this operation — that gives us confidence in the information we have on the different facilities,” the Israeli official said.
Addressing reporters at a news conference, Trump seemed to commit to enforce Article 5 of the NATO charter, a critical provision of the alliance that states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. In the past, Trump has cast doubt on his commitment to the pledge.
“As far as Article 5, look — when I came here, I came here because it was something I’m supposed to be doing,” 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 quite anything like it. They want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same.”
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The visual was moving, the president said.
“I left here saying that these people really love their countries,” he added. “It’s not a rip-off. And we’re here to help them protect their countries.”
Trump also gave himself praise for helping to broker ceasefires around the world — most recently between Israel and Iran, but also between Pakistan and India, as well as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — while expressing frustration with Russia’s president for what he described as “misguided” views that have perpetuated Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
He described a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as “very nice” — “he couldn’t have been nicer,” Trump said — while offering choice words for Putin, an uncharacteristic position for a president who has repeatedly referred to the Russian leader as a potential friend and partner.
“Vladimir Putin has been more difficult,” Trump said, telling one Ukrainian reporter that he is looking to provide Kyiv with Patriot missile defense batteries — long a request of the Ukrainian government.
Trump also said he was open to sending additional defense funds to Kyiv if Putin fails to make progress toward a ceasefire. “As far as money going, we’ll see what happens — there’s a lot of spirit,” he said.
“Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war,” he added.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
