Donald Trump was expected to fly into the Nato summit in The Hague on Tuesday to perform a victory lap. After decades of complaining about European defence spending, with the help of Mark Rutte, Nato’s new secretary general, allies are ready to sign up to a target to raise, in most cases, core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.
On top of that, it is just a few days since the first major military intervention of Trump’s second term – the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan over the weekend – and hours since hisdeclaration of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
Barring a dramatic breakdown in that ceasefire, Trump is likely to arrive in a self-congratulatory mood, which mostNatoleaders are unlikely to want to puncture at a cut-down summit, designed for leaders with short attention spans. It will begin with a dinner hosted by the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, on Tuesday evening, to be followed by a single working meeting on Wednesday morning with press conferences thereafter.
Concerns from earlier this year about whether Trump would reject Nato, withdraw US troops from Europe, abandonUkraineand pursue a close relationship with Moscow have eased, though none have gone away. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is invited to the dinner, but not to a working meeting with Nato leaders, reflecting the softening US support for Kyiv, where fresh military aid has been halted under Trump.
Jamie Shea, a former Nato spokesperson and deputy assistant secretary general, said the meeting would be “disappointing for Ukraine, especially as most allies would have wanted much stronger language on support, the open door for Ukraine’s Nato membership and a clearer path on sanctions against Russia”.
In practice, he added, it would mean that support for Kyiv would gravitate towards other European frameworks, including the EU and the Ukraine contact group of military aid donors, now chaired by the UK and Germany. ButEuropecannot plug the gaps caused by an absence of US military support, leaving Ukraine at risk of being stuck fighting a defensive war that Russia appears eager to prolong.
Though the latest developments in the Middle East are still likely to dominate much of the news, there is little role for Nato in the region. Europe is largely marginalised from the conflict, though that could shift ifIranwere to opt for a dramatic new path.
Credit for the positive diplomatic tone ahead of the summit largely goes to the former Dutch prime minister Rutte, who is generally deemed to have handled the US president deftly by offering him what he wanted and persuading most European allies to sign up more readily than expected.
Rutte put forward a plan to persuade allies to spend a headline 5% of GDP on defence, of which 3.5% is military spending and the rest a hotchpotch of related intelligence, cyber and infrastructure that all allies can match. Though he hoped to set a deadline of 2032, as he acknowledges, the final target date of 2035 is a modest compromise.
The secretary general insists it was not difficult to persuade Nato leaders to sign up because they can see the threat from Russia, which he said could mount “a successful attack on Nato” somewhere between 2028 and 2030. “They know today, if they do that, it’s the end, devastating. But I want them to know that it’s still the case in three to five years,” he said in an interview with the Guardian.
Nevertheless, on the eve of the summit there was some last-minute politicking, to the frustration of other western diplomats, with Spain declaring it would not match the 3.5% pledge, though it would not block its adoption. Madrid said it could meet its Nato commitments on 2.1%. Rutte said there were “no exemptions or opt-outs”, and it would be a matter of time to see if Spain matched the pledge.
For a handful of countries, the new spending target does not make much difference. The 3.5% figure is slightly above the current US budget, and below Poland, which is particularly concerned about the threat from nearby Russia. But for most it represents a substantial commitment, including France, Germany and the UK.
Previously the UK had committed to spending 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and leaks had suggested it was one of the last countries willing to sign up to the 3.5% target, a to and fro that only ended 10 days ago. The additional percentage point amounts roughly to £30bn in new money for defence, a significant sum that Rutte said was accepted by Nato leaders because of the scale of the threat.
“People understood and realised that if you want to maintain the British language and not switch to Russian in London, then you have to defend yourself, and to defend yourself against Russia, which is now producing four times as much ammunition as the whole of Nato,” the secretary general said.