At a tricky NATO summit, a Trumpian meltdown is averted

THE TONE was that of a parent congratulating a toddler. “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world,” wrote Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of NATO, in a text message to America’s president. “Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”

The message was promptly screen-shotted and posted publicly by Mr Trump as he flew into a NATO summit at The Hague on June 24th, prompting other leaders to frantically review what they had previously sent the president lest it be pasted on social media. A day later Mr Rutte, responding to Mr Trump’s description of Israel and Iran as children, went further, referring to the president as “Daddy”.

Diplomats at the summit were divided over whether Mr Rutte’s strategy was degrading or inspired. Either way, the substance was largely true. The summit communiqué published on June 25th—the shortest in recent times—formally announced a new target for allies: 3.5% of GDP on defence plus an additional 1.5% in defence-related spending on critical infrastructure, cyber-defence, civil preparedness and support to defence industries.

The 3.5% figure is rooted in NATO’s assessment of what it will take to build up the capabilities required by the alliance’s regional defence plans, written after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The plans are currently “executable with some risk”, says an official; more money would reduce that risk. The combined figure of 5% is a pleasantly round number that was devised largely to placate Mr Trump. But it has some holes.

In the run-up to the summit, Spain emerged as the lone holdout against the spending target. Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, is in a tight spot at home, battling allegations of corruption by his aides and unable to pass a budget. “A 5% spending would be disproportionate and unnecessary,” he said on June 22nd.

The solution was two-fold. One trick was to stretch the timeline for meeting the target. Many states had pushed for 2032, with steady annual increases to get there. Others, though, under greater fiscal pressure—and not just Spain—pushed for 2035. In the end, regrettably, the laggards won, though allies are supposed to submit annual plans showing a “credible, incremental path” to the target, and will be subject to a bigger review in 2029.

The problem is that Russia is rebuilding its armed forces faster than previously thought. It had been assumed that it would take Russia seven years after any ceasefire in Ukraine to reconstitute its forces to the level needed for a confrontation with NATO. “The general assessment now should be five years,” one senior NATO official told The Economist. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” complains Dovile Sakaliene, Lithuania’s defence minister, suggesting that Russia could attack before the new spending turned up: “2035 is after the [next] war.”

Second, instead of committing “all allies” to the new target, the communiqué simply omitted the word “all”, leaving some ambiguity over how binding it would be. That fudge has prompted concern among several NATO allies that others might also look to exploit the same loophole to dodge their commitments. Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, noted on June 23rd, for instance, that his country had “other priorities in the coming years than armament”. Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, said that Spain’s tacit exemption was “a big problem”, adding: “I don’t think that the agreement that Spain has reached is sustainable.”

The Spanish drama apart, most of the agenda was agreed in advance, leaving leaders to rubber-stamp its proposals. The leaders of Australia, Japan and South Korea, all of whom have attended recent summits, pulled out, giving the event a more parochial flavour. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, attended a dinner on June 24th but was pointedly left out of the main meetings the next day. The communiqué itself watered down its language on Russia to placate Mr Trump. Russia appeared 43 times in the document released at last year’s Washington summit. This year it appears once.

Britain also announced that it was joining NATO’s nuclear-sharing mission, in which several European air forces host American nuclear bombs and practise dropping them with their own jets. Britain plans to buy F-35A jets, which can carry them. It is one of the biggest shifts in the alliance’s nuclear posture for decades; the Royal Air Force gave up nuclear bombs more than 25 years ago.

In The Hague by far the greatest source of uncertainty was Mr Trump himself. En route to the summit, he (rightly) criticised the Spanish stance, describing it as “very unfair to the rest of them”. He questioned (once again) his own commitment to Article Five, NATO’s mutual-defence clause. It “depends on your definition”, he suggested, adding ominously that there were “numerous definitions” of the text: “I’m going to give you an exact definition when I get there.” (He didn’t.) But in the end Mr Trump did not rock the boat in the leaders’ private meeting, instead taking plaudits for their higher defence spending. And he declared in his closing press conference that NATO is “not a rip-off”. Mr Rutte, the continent’s new Trump-whisperer, declared: “For me, there is absolute clarity that the United States is totally committed to NATO…totally committed to Article Five.” So that’s all right then. ■