Mark Rutte’s roadmap when he arrived last year at NATO’s head was clear: keeping the United States in the alliance.
Almost nine months later, he is about to succeed in his bet on Tuesday and Wednesday in The Hague, where the 32 NATO leaders, including Donald Trump, are on the occasion of a summit that has already described as “historical”.
Appointed in October 2024, head of the Atlantic Alliance, former Dutch prime minister opted for a relatively simple strategy: never criticize or contradict the former reality show shows.
Without pointing out that it is forbidden to flatter it and braid laurels at the right time. In his social network of truth, Donald Trump shared an image of an SMS that NATO general secretary sent him in the afternoon.
A confirmed alliance official to Bloomberg That the published message was authentic and that it had been sent before while Trump flew on the Atlantic to meet Routte, the host of the concentration of 32 Member States.
“You fly to a new great success” and “you will achieve something that no US president has managed to do for decades,” said Mark Rutte, in a Ditirambico message, that Donald Trump immediately published in his Truth social network on Tuesday.
“Europe will pay a Grand Prix” to finance its defense “as it should” and “will be your victory,” writes Mark Rutte, assuming the capital letter in capital letters that Donald Trump likes in his own messages.
“A very nice blow!”
The US president has repeatedly asked the European allies and Canada, who spend much more on their defense, dedicating at least 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to their safety.
Mark Rutte suggests that the allies resume the 5%figure, loved for Donald Trump, but by dividing it.
It proposes to bring the level of military spending Stricto sensu to 3.5% of GDP by 2032, while suggesting that NATO countries also contribute 1.5% of their GDP their security related expenses, in the broad sense.
Proposing what Donald Trump demanded in Cor and CRI and making him accept Europeans is simply “masterful,” estimates a European diplomat.
A “very nice blow,” Jamie Shea summarizes. “It makes things much more acceptable to Europeans, because with this 1.5%category, they can include everything they have already spent money for years.”
However, the case seemed quite badly committed. When Donald Trump advanced the 5%figure, the first reactions in many countries were unanimous: “pure madness”, “absurd”, “ridiculous”.
“Keep the United States committed”
Mark Rutte has kept calm, to be interested in how to operate what seemed like a simple slogan imagined by Donald Trump. Then he made this proposal that made it possible to gather everyone.
And the “Sect”, as it is called in Brussels, never hesitated to greet the words of the White House tenant, in his desire to lead to a rapid resolution of the war in Ukraine or in his repeated and supported allies for a significant increase in his defense expenses.
The strategy, apparently, paid.
But this desire to please the one who received it in his Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida also caused his teeth to shudder in Brussels. Some have judged that sometimes he was going too far in this desire to coat the billionaire.
After the humiliation suffered by Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office of the White House in February, his comments call the Ukrainian president to quickly reconnect with Donald Trump shocked to certain allies.
Source: BFM TV
