NATO chief Mark Rutte spoke flatteringly of Donald Trump’s effort to end the war in Ukraine, and about the US President in general when the two met in Washington on Thursday.
“[On] Ukraine, you broke the deadlock, as you said; all the killing, the young people dying, cities getting destroyed,” Rutte said in his prepared remarks. “The fact that you did that, that you started the dialogue with the Russians and the successful talks in Saudi Arabia, now with the Ukrainians, I really want to commend you for this.”
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The diplomatic former Dutch prime minister did not bring up the role he played in de-escalating tensions between team Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky after the latter was verbally ambushed in the White House, with insults ranging from his alleged lack of gratitude towards the US to his choice of attire.
Instead, Rutte continued to soothe the mercurial president’s ego with compliments on his role in initiating the peace process with Ukraine and Russia, stressing, “Breaking the deadlock, that was crucial.”
Most of their remarks centered around the recent push to ramp up defense spending on both sides of the Atlantic.
What happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering,” Rutte noted. “The Europeans committing to a package of 800 billion in defense spending. The Germans now potentially up to half a trillion extra in defense spending. And then, of course, you have Keir Starmer here, the British Prime Minister, and others all committing to much higher defense spending.
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For his part, Trump stared by congratulating himself, and then had praise for Rutte, one of the few European leaders for whom the president has many nice things to say.
“When I first went to NATO ... I noticed that very few people were paying,” Trump said. “I was able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars... the money started pouring in and NATO became much stronger because of my actions.”
He added, “NATO is stepping up. This man is a man that only knows how to step up.”
And then the conversation turned to the president’s plan to somehow pry Greenland out of Denmark’s control, and the Dutchman’s tone turned from charming to defensive.
“I think it will happen,” Trump said, before gesturing towards Rutte with his thumb and adding: “I didn’t give it much thought before but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental” in that.
“You know, Mark, we need that for international security... we have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast and we have to be careful,” Trump said he said, referring to rising Chinese and Russian interest boosting their presence in the Arctic.
According to an AFP reporter, the NATO chief “flashed an embarrassed grin and sat back in his armchair, legs crossed, as he said that he wanted to remain ‘outside this discussion’ of Greenland joining the United States or not.
“I don’t want to drag NATO into that,” Rutte said. Denmark is a founding member of the Alliance.
But, always diplomatic, Rutte did agree with Trump’s point about Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic region.
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