NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte flew to Washington on Wednesday to personally patch up a widening rift with U.S. President Donald Trump, triggered by Trump’s decision to launch the Iran war in February without prior consultation with NATO allies, just two weeks before the alliance’s high-stakes summit in Ankara on July 7.
Rutte came with a clear strategy. He displayed charts showing rising NATO defence spending and praised Trump’s military campaign against Iran, calling him the “leader of the free world” and saying he was “completely behind him” on the Iran operation. He also pointed out that 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. planes took off from European bases during the six-week conflict, making the case that allied support was broader than Trump gives credit for.
Trump wasn’t fully sold. He said European allies should have offered to help in Iran even if their assistance wasn’t needed, and renewed threats to leave the 77-year-old alliance. Still, he praised Rutte personally, saying the meeting wouldn’t be happening at all “if anybody else were in that position.”
The visit follows U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s public criticism of allies last week in Brussels, where his department is conducting a six-month review of American troop levels in Europe.
