Before the just-ended NATO meeting got underway, President Trump, accompanied by Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, along with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, gave a press conference. This is different from the one that Trump gave at the conclusion of the NATO conference, which was by all accounts a bravura performance.
But I want to focus on the first press conference, because it included a remarkable tribute to President Trump by Secretary General Rutte. As of this week, NATO countries are pledging to spend 5% of their gross domestic products on defense–3.5% on core defense production, and 1.5% on support infrastructure. Secretary General Rutte attributes this heightened commitment entirely to Donald Trump.
It started in his first term, according to Rutte, when Trump said out loud what everyone knew: that NATO was really a one-country operation, and it was time for the Europeans to pull their weight. It continued as the Europeans pledged 2% of their GDPs, and now, spurred, obviously, by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine–but note that it didn’t happen until Trump was back in the White House–they have gone to 5%. Rutte says this never would have happened without Trump. Rutte’s praise of Trump in the press conference was effusive.
Waking the Europeans out of their welfare state sleepwalk and getting them to take national defense seriously was an extraordinary political accomplishment. And I think NATO’s Secretary General is correct in crediting it to Donald Trump. If the Europeans follow through with their commitments, it will be one of the signal foreign policy achievements of the modern era. It contradicts, of course, the Democrats’ hysterical claims that Trump is destroying our foreign alliances in pursuit of a “go it alone” foreign policy. Nothing could be further from the truth, but when have we been surprised by Democrats being wrong?
Here is the Rutte/Trump press conference, but it doesn’t begin until the 31 minute mark:
