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“Daddy has to sometimes use strong language,” Rutte said laughing, referring to the expletive Trump had used to lash out at ceasefire violations.
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From afar, the Russians were trolling, picking up on the whiff of obsequiousness.
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But Rutte wasn’t going to be thrown off course.
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As he herded leaders into the summit’s sole plenary session, those present were told to leave their phones outside the hall and to keep their opening remarks to a brief 3 minutes. It was understood, having seen Trump walk out of meetings before, that the president didn’t much enjoy drawn out events and gatherings.
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Trump was given unlimited time. He talked for 8 minutes.
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At the summit’s enormous round table, Trump was seated next to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — another leader who knows a monarch impresses the Republican president and who’d hand delivered a royal invitation to visit from King Charles III.
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One person inside the room said that Trump had said he didn’t understand why some countries didn’t want to invest in their defense. His message was: buy weapons only from the US.
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According to one senior defense official, Spain deserved to get a kicking. Several countries were angry with the alliance’s lowest spender because they realized that everyone had to suck it up, the person said.
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Sanchez duly got iced out as punishment, shunted off the frame in the family photo, seated at a table as far from Trump as possible and given a cold handshake from Rutte on his arrival.
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But the biggest kicking came at Trump’s end-of-summit news conference, where he linked two issues — defense and trade tariffs — that Europeans want to keep separate in talks with the US.
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“You’re the only country that is not paying,” Trump said, threatening to make Spain “pay twice as much” through tariffs. “We’ll make it up.”
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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at dinner with his counterparts, conceded the Americans knew they’d run NATO colleagues hard, but they had delivered and it was appreciated, according to one official present, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Language on Russia was carefully calibrated in the final communique. Some countries had wanted to label it an aggressor, which was never going to fly. Trump didn’t mention Russia directly in his speech, according to a person who heard it.
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That NATO still described Russia as a “threat” was seen as a win, though inevitably disappointing for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who cut a mournful figure at this summit.
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Having missed his chance at the Group of Seven in Canada, when Trump left early, Zelenskiy at least got an audience here to lobby for weapons sales to Ukraine. Trump acknowledged Zelenskiy is “fighting a brave battle,” though he still doesn’t plan to continue to donate military support for Kyiv.
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The general sense is that Trump has largely washed his hands of efforts to get a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which suits President Vladimir Putin well.
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The highlight for Trump was Dutch royalty.
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“Beautiful people,” Trump said. “Central casting I must say.”
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The royal family were more than bit players in a summit Rutte built to stroke Trump’s ego and appeal to his indulgences. It was the vindication of an approach dating back to the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2024 where Rutte was openly campaigning to become the next secretary general.
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Trump was on his own re-election campaign and Rutte stood out from the pack of Davos attendees. Instead of sounding the alarm about Trump’s return, he chose to praise his chastisement of fellow NATO allies for not pulling their weight.
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