President Donald Trump is heading to Europe for talks with NATO allies as the world reels from his dramatic strikes on Iran over the weekend, followed by the announcement of a ceasefire with Israel Monday evening.
“European Allies were quite supportive of the U.S. decision to use military force against Iran’s nuclear program,” Jennifer Kavanaugh, senior fellow at the Defense Priorities Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. “They were among the first, really, to come out and assert that Iran could not get a nuclear weapon.”
Iran retaliated with strikes that were seen as largely symbolic, and Trump just hours later announced a ceasefire on Truth Social, saying “between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” by the time the NATO summit begins.
Kavanaugh contrasted the European response to the Iran strikes with U.S. partners in the Middle East, who condemned the strike, and with allies in Asia who were concerned about international implications. However, she said she doesn’t expect European allies to make an issue of Trump’s military actions.
“They likely see it as a sign of resolve and strength, which, in the eyes of many Europeans, carries over to other adversaries,” Kavanaugh added. “So Trump has now shown his willingness to use military force, and decisively.”
There are a lot of other matters to be discussed over a compressed timeline.
The summit, held at The Hague in the Netherlands, will begin on Tuesday and end on Wednesday, with a wide range of topics expected to be discussed in that narrow time frame. Among them are national spending commitments, a favorite topic for Trump as he presses Europe to handle more of its own defense, the war in Ukraine, and now the aftermath of Saturday’s Iran strikes and the apparent ceasefire agreement.
There will be a single, 2 1/2-hour leaders meeting to underscore the 5% defense spending pledge.
Trump has not shied away from provoking European leaders over their NATO contributions, saying just last week that Spain was a “low payer.”
“NATO is going to have to deal with Spain,” he said Friday in New Jersey before a fundraiser. “Spain has been notorious for low pay. You know who else was a low payer? Just about the lowest. A place called Canada because Canada said, ‘Why should we pay when the United States will protect us for free?’”
Trump is challenging NATO allies to reach a 5% defense spending pledge, meaning they spend at least 5% of their gross domestic product on military expenditures. Within that figure, 3.5% would be spent on “hard defense” capabilities, with the remaining 1.5% spent on other security needs, including so-called “resilience” costs, such as infrastructure projects that can withstand the weight of military equipment.
Estonia, Greece, Poland, Turkey, and the U.S. are already close to spending 3.5% of their GDP on hard defense capabilities. However, Spain drew Trump’s ire after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez undermined the 3.5% figure, saying his country “cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP.”
When asked about NATO’s 5% defense spending pledge, Trump told reporters that the U.S. should not have to make the same commitment because it has been “paying almost 100% of the cost” for most of the alliance’s history. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is also a proponent of increased defense spending.
A senior U.S. official described the defense spending pledge as “historic” because it will “strengthen the alliance’s combined military capabilities and ensure greater stability in Europe and the world.”
“This effort builds on the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending increases already achieved across the alliance since 2017, thanks to President Trump’s diplomacy in his first term,” the official told reporters on a press call previewing the summit.
The war in Ukraine will also be a major topic, although not as big as in previous years, due to the Iran situation and due to Trump’s relatively diminished support for Ukraine in comparison to former President Joe Biden.
However, European leaders may feel optimistic in this area again because of last weekend’s Iran strikes.
“I think the second thing to keep in mind is that Europe doesn’t necessarily want peace right now in Ukraine,” Kavanaugh said. “They (European nations) want to keep supporting Ukraine so Ukraine can keep fighting in hopes that time will be on Ukraine’s side, so a delay in the U.S.’s focus on pushing hard or coercing Ukraine into a peace deal may not be a bad thing.”
The Iran strikes may also show Russian President Vladimir Putin that Trump means business when he speaks. Trump, who initially chose to put most of his public pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has grown more frustrated with Putin as peace talks have worn on without a resolution to the conflict.
“Hopefully, Putin will see [the Iran strikes] and hopefully see that Trump is not a pushover,” Kavanaugh said.
Zelensky was expected to meet with Trump at last week’s Group of Seven meetings in Canada, but Trump bolted early due to rising tensions in the Middle East. This week’s NATO summit is being kept brief in part to avoid a similar scenario.
The G7 issued a rare joint statement condemning Iran after Trump left, and Iran will cast a shadow over the proceedings in the Netherlands.
Trump’s strike opens door for true peace
As tensions escalated last week, Iran’s foreign minister met with European leaders in an attempt to decrease tension in the region. However, Trump flatly dismissed the notion that those talks would be productive, saying, “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe.”
Asked how the evolving situation in Iran would affect Trump’s trip to the NATO summit this week and whether it could keep him from attending, White House officials were adamant about the president’s participation.
One White senior White House aide told the Washington Examiner that Trump was particularly keen to go now that NATO has announced plans to meet his calls for 5% GDP defense commitments from treaty members.
Still, White House officials declined to characterize communications with U.S. allies since Trump struck Iran on Saturday.