Trump attended the NATO summit when the allies agree to stimulate defense expenses
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President Donald Trump, fresh out of an advertisements from a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, left for the Hague, in the Netherlands for the annual summit of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), a conference where he hopes to pay another victory in foreign policy by pushing European leaders to increase defense expenses.
The president is expected to land in the Netherlands on Tuesday and return to the White House on Wednesday.
It is Trump is the first NATO Summit since become president for a second term. In the past, it has been reduced against NATO members for “veiled” of US military protection. This time, European allies are impatient to prove it the opposite.
NATO has concluded an agreement for all nations to increase their defense expenses to five percent of their gross domestic product, with the exception of Spain.
Trump initially made the request, which should be finalized at the summit.
“This summit really concerns NATO’s credibility, And we urge all our allies to go to the plate and pay their fair share for transatlantic security, “said NATO ambassador Matthew Whitaker.
President Donald Trump starts Air Force when he arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, United States, June 21, 2025. Reuters / Ken Cedeno
Spain has complicated consensus when Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez demanded an exemption from the new spending objective – which would be a strong increase compared to the 2% target that Spain had trouble achieving.
“We fully respect the legitimate desire of other countries to increase their defense investment, but we are not going to do so,” said Sanchez.
Trump is expected to meet Rutte and other world leaders and organize a press conference. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should also attend, continuing his thrust for the admission of Ukraine to the Alliance and his collective defense pact.
NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, boasted that the Allies “moved to an equal sharing of the responsibility of our shared security”.
Trump said he didn’t think the United States had to reach the 5%goal. “I don’t think we should, but I think they should,” he told journalists last week.
NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, has a press conference before a NATO summit in Hague, in the Netherlands, June 23, 2025. Reuters / Yves Herman
To what to expect in the next NATO summit: Trump, expenses, Ukraine, Iran
The time of the president at the top will be brief, spending about 24 hours on the field. His meetings “will focus on shared concern issues and will reaffirm the close ties of the United States with our allies and our partners,” according to an administration official.
But they come after Trump can boast of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
“It was fully agreed and between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and total ceasefire (in around 6 hours, when Israel and Iran have been removed and completed in progress, final missions!), For 12 hours, to which the war will be considered, finished!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Rutte suggested that NATO would be held behind the United States after Iran launched a counterattack on its air base in Qatar, after American attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites.
“My biggest fear would be that Iran has and can use a nuclear weapon,” Rutte told journalists before the summit.
He defended the American strikes on Iran after being questioned about the parallels between the United States and Russia when he invaded Ukraine in 2022.
A view shows the location of the next NATO summit in Hague, in the Netherlands, June 23, 2025. Reuters / Christian Hartmann
“This is a coherent NATO position: Iran should not have a hand on a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I would not agree that it is against international law – what the United States has done.”
Rutte had wanted the summit to be a show of NATO unity to the Russian president Vladimir Putin in the middle of the current war in Ukraine. But a conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran makes the conference less foreseeable.
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The war in Iraq in 2003 deeply divided NATO: France and Germany were opposed to the invasion while Great Britain and Spain joined the coalition forces.
