{"id":262,"date":"2026-07-07T23:42:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2026-07-07T23:42:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:42:40","slug":"trumps-reaction-to-nato-leaders-flattery-was-entirely-predictable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s reaction to NATO leaders\u2019 flattery was entirely predictable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When NATO leaders adjourned the 2025 edition of their annual summit last summer, President Donald Trump emerged from the gathering with nothing but compliments for an alliance he frequently blasts as a charity case. He had reason to be gleeful. After significant pressure from the White House ahead of the summit, NATO members agreed to increase their defense spending\u00a0to 5% of GDP by 2035, more than double the previous benchmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more MaddowBlog<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came here, I came here because it was something I\u2019m supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit different, differently,\u201d\u00a0Trump told reporters\u00a0at the concluding press conference. \u201cI watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those heads of state and government will be lucky to survive this year\u2019s summit with similar accolades. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the organization\u2019s bona-fide \u201cTrump Whisperer,\u201d hoped to make this year\u2019s summit a success, but Trump is yet again souring on the alliance for all sorts of reasons. NATO is likely trending in one direction: an organization whose primary security guarantor is tired of the status quo and is leaving other members to pick up the slack.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the summit, Rutte deployed an extensive game plan to keep the U.S. leader\u2019s favor. His first step: tell everybody with eyes and ears that Trump, and Trump alone, is the big, strong man responsible for shaking NATO out of its peacetime slumber. Second, show the president that his pressure tactics are in fact working. When Rutte was at the White House last week, he pulled out a big chart, titled \u201cthe Trump Trillion,\u201d\u00a0to demonstrate NATO\u2019s $1.2 trillion\u00a0in European and Canadian defense spending since 2017, the first year of Trump\u2019s first term. Finally,\u00a0try to convince the Americans\u00a0that NATO is a big job creator for the United States and a golden goose for the American defense industry. As one NATO diplomat\u00a0proffered on the eve of the summit, \u201cIt\u2019s all about Trump management.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet what Washington\u2019s European and Canadian allies consistently fail to grasp is that the Trump administration is, if not moving on from Europe, at least interested in doing so. While slavish praise from Rutte may buy the alliance some more time to get its act together and replace whatever U.S. military platforms are scheduled to rotate out, Trump is an impatient man who wants immediate results \u2014 and to be seen as the one driving them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If anybody has any doubts about this, consider Trump\u2019s opening remarks as he sat with this year\u2019s summit host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump\u2019s press conference was a Festivus-like \u201cairing of grievances.\u201d The Europeans,\u00a0he said, let the U.S. down by refusing to assist its war against Iran. NATO, he stated for the umpteenth time, was a disappointment and likely wouldn\u2019t return the favor for all the good the U.S. has done for NATO\u2019s defense. <\/p>\n

Individual personalities weren\u2019t spared either. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was a nice person, Trump added, but she made \u201ca mistake\u201d: by not allowing the U.S. Air Force to use Italian military bases for bombing runs against Iranian targets. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump hinted, may have ruined his own political career by not heeding Washington\u2019s wartime requests. And yes, America still wanted to acquire Greenland from Denmark because the Danes weren\u2019t doing much to help the island ward off the mystical Russian and Chinese ships harassing the icy island.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump kicks off NATO summit with his favorite pro-Kremlin falsehood<\/a><\/p>\n

That last item will be especially irritating for Washington\u2019s NATO allies. Many thought Greenland was no longer an issue after NATO adopted a new mission,\u00a0Arctic Sentry, specifically catered to addressing U.S. complaints about security in the Arctic. By beefing up the NATO troop presence there, the operation was also designed to give Trump a reason to let go of his long-standing fixation on Greenland. Despite this, Trump seems as obsessed with the ice-covered island today as he was in January, when he left a U.S. invasion on the table and threatened select European allies with additional tariffs for failing to support American annexation of the territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A similar dynamic is likely to play out with respect to defense spending. Partly due to Russia\u2019s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Trump\u2019s own pressure campaign, Washington\u2019s NATO allies are increasing their defense budgets. European countries are collaborating on new military projects to improve deterrence against Moscow, including a new European joint strike fighter, air defense network\u00a0and deep-strike missile system. Germany, which used to be one of NATO\u2019s most fickle members, is now\u00a0on course to spend $124 billion\u00a0on its military by 2027, a 32% hike from this year\u2019s levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words, there\u2019s no dispute that real progress is being made. There\u2019s also no dispute that Trump can legitimately claim some credit for the uptick. It\u2019s not a coincidence that NATO\u2019s total non-U.S. defense spending has gone up every single year of Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

Yet as with Greenland\u2019s status, and despite the statistics NATO bureaucrats shove in his face, Trump is highly unlikely to stop complaining about paltry European and Canadian defense budgets in relation to America\u2019s own. And even if he did, there will always be another excuse for him to whine and demand concessions. After Greenland, it was Iran. Then it was Europe\u2019s trade policies and tax on digital services. Then it was defense budgets. And then it was Greenland again.<\/p>\n

European leaders obviously find all of this frustrating. One the one hand, they want to show Trump that NATO is trying to address his concerns. But on the other, those same leaders are fearful that remedying them will just provide Washington with more reason to downsize the U.S. troop presence in Europe at a time when states along the alliance\u2019s eastern flank warn about the possibility of Russian destabilization nearly every day.\u00a0Already, the White House\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0and\u00a0the Pentagon\u2019s \u00a0both prioritize the Western Hemisphere and Western Pacific above the European theater. The Pentagon is now in the middle\u00a0of a 6-month evaluation\u00a0of the U.S. force posture in Europe; and the Trump administration has informed allies that the United States\u00a0is puling some combat aircraft\u00a0and naval vessels from the alliance\u2019s operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As this week\u2019s summit shows, attempting to flatter Trump into a rosier view of NATO is unlikely to work over the long-term.\u00a0NATO would be better off preparing for the day when the U.S. is no longer around or, more likely, views European stability as a far lesser priority than other regions. Trump\u2019s behavior is forcing the issue now, whether NATO likes it or not. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more MaddowBlog<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO would be better off preparing for the day when the U.S. is no longer around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s reaction to NATO leaders\u2019 flattery was entirely predictable - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=262\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s reaction to NATO leaders\u2019 flattery was entirely predictable - Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NATO would be better off preparing for the day when the U.S. is no longer around.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=262\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-07T23:42:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0206dfa2bde56a4792f75b5b97027e43\"},\"headline\":\"Trump\u2019s reaction to NATO leaders\u2019 flattery was entirely predictable\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-07T23:42:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262\"},\"wordCount\":1173,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/44f26ad0a96798995a122e7690521863.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"US\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=262\",\"name\":\"Trump\u2019s reaction to NATO leaders\u2019 flattery was entirely predictable - 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