President Donald Trump is poised to use his meeting with new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte to implore NATO members to “pay their fair share.”
Rutte, who replaced longtime secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg last October after Stoltenberg’s term was extended amid the Russia-Ukraine war, is expected at the White House on Thursday as Trump and his allies, including Elon Musk, ramped up their criticism of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“I’m quite confident, as he always does when it comes to NATO, he will urge the NATO secretary the president’s belief that NATO countries need to pay their fair share for their own defense,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “We have been spending billions and billions of dollars on NATO, which the president agrees with so long as other countries are paying their fair share.”
Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, developed a warm relationship with Trump during the president’s first term, earning him a reputation as a Trump whisperer.
But during the first week of his second administration, Trump increased his demand on NATO members to spend the treaty-stipulated 2% of their gross domestic product on defense spending to 5%.
“Last time I spoke with him, that was his commitment,” Leavitt said.
Calls for the U.S. to leave NATO have been amplified by the likes of Musk in recent weeks, so much so that NATO members even expected Trump to announce he was going to withdraw from the alliance during last week’s joint address to Congress. Trump did not.
“Doesn’t make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe,” Musk wrote on social media on March 9.
During a Wednesday meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the White House’s Oval Office, Trump was asked by reporters whether the United States has a “future in NATO.”
“Well, NATO has to treat us fairly,” he said.
Trump used the opportunity to take credit for encouraging NATO defense spending during his first term before much of that money was spent on the Russia-Ukraine war.
“NATO became much stronger,” he said. “They had the money from me. I was the one who got people to pay. Most of the countries were not paying or they were paying a very small amount. NATO can be a force for the good, absolutely.”
Martin similarly used the platform to praise Trump for his attempt to make peace between Russia and Ukraine, with Ukraine agreeing this week to a 30-day ceasefire, though no minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine has been signed. Russia has not yet agreed to the temporary truce.
“I want to pay tribute to the president on the peace initiatives,” Martin said. “The war in Ukraine is a devastating war. … Anything we can do to stop the violence is an extremely positive thing.”