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Nato leaders are bracing for Donald Trump to redefine the alliance’s mutual defence pact, amid concern that he will water down US security commitments that have protected Europe for eight decades.
The US president is meeting his 31 Nato allies in The Hague on Wednesday, where European leaders hope their vows to increase national defence spending will convince him to maintain America’s protection if their countries are attacked.
Asked about his commitment to Nato after he arrived at the summit, Trump said: “We’re with them all the way”.
But he sparked alarm earlier by telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that Washington’s commitment to Nato’s Article 5, which refers to its mutual defence pact, “depends on your definition”.
Trump said there were “numerous definitions” of Article 5. “I’m committed to being their friends. I’m going to give you an exact definition when I get there.”
The comments had cast a pall over the gathering, three European officials at the summit told the Financial Times, and threatened to mar an event designed to keep the US engaged in the transatlantic relationship.
“The summit rests on what Trump decides,” said one of the officials. “We are all just sat here waiting for him to tell us if he will defend Europe.”
Trump’s comments about Article 5 follow previous threats to only defend allies that spend more on defence, startling European leaders who fear that Russia could attack a Nato member within the decade.
Torrey Taussig, former director of European affairs at the White House National Security Council, said it was “the last thing that Nato secretary-general Rutte or Nato allies wanted to hear, as the entire summit has been carefully choreographed to secure US commitment to Nato and to avoid any dust-ups with President Trump”.
Mark Rutte has strained to make the summit Trump-friendly, reducing it to a two-and-a-half hour discussion and praising him in a private message for forcing Europeans to increase their military spending.
“Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” Rutte wrote in the message, which Trump published on social media.
That unity on more spending has been challenged by Spain, which has refused a pledge to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, sparking demands from other governments for flexibility on the target.
“Spain’s not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them,” Trump said on Air Force One on Tuesday.
He added that the US should also not pay the same as “everyone else”, arguing that European defence spending helped boost infrastructure and “we don’t have any roads in Europe, we don’t have any bridges in Europe”.
Rutte, arriving at the event on Wednesday, dismissed concerns that the Spanish stance would derail the summit and restated his belief that Trump was committed to Nato. “There is absolute clarity that the US is committed to Nato, committed to Article 5,” he said.
Leaders of other European Nato member states also sought to provide reassurance about Trump’s intentions.
“I don’t think President Trump is relativising Article 5,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said as he arrived at the summit. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said he believed Trump was “100 per cent” committed to Nato and the alliance’s mutual defence pact. Bart De Wever, Belgian prime minister, said: “It is crucial that Article 5 is not subject to interpretation.”
But Rachel Rizzo, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, said she did not know that Trump had “ever given” a clear statement that he would stand by Nato’s mutual defence pact.
The rest of the alliance was “maybe looking for something they’re just never going to get”, she said.
The US, by far the largest defence spender in Nato, is the alliance’s irreplaceable member state, with many European countries dependent on its long-range missiles, intelligence and surveillance assets.
While previous US presidents have demanded European allies spend more on defence, Trump has gone far further than his predecessors by linking Washington’s security support to their commitments.
He has also demanded that defence spending be “equalised” between the US and the rest of the alliance so American military assets could focus more on Asia and the Middle East.
“With the Trump administration, everything is a negotiation and everything is on the table,” said Sophia Gaston, research fellow at King’s College London. “Anybody who believes anything different is frankly naive.”
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