NATO leaders agreed to a sharp increase in defense spending at their June 25 summit in The Hague, delivering a big win for US President Donald Trump while reaffirming their “ironclad commitment” to come to each other’s aid if attacked.
Here are the main takeaways from the meeting.
Trump Flattery
As head of the military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte really had just one task at his first summit, which was held in his hometown, The Hague: to make sure that Trump was on board and didn’t cause any ruckus similar to the 2018 Brussels meeting, where he nearly pulled the United States out of the club.
And it’s fair to say that Rutte doubled down on his task.
In fact, ahead of the meeting, Trump shared on social media a glowing private message from Rutte, in which the NATO chief credited him for increased European defense spending and for his “extraordinary” strikes on Iran.
When quizzed by reporters on this, Rutte was unabashed and continued with the praise, calling Trump “daddy” in a joint press statement and hailing the US president once again at the start of the summit's working session.
"Your leadership on this has already produced one trillion dollars in extra spending from European Allies since 2016," he told Trump. "And the decisions today will produce trillions more for our common defense.”
The US president seemed pleased, posting enthusiastically about the summit dinner hosted by the Dutch king and queen.
The flattery clearly worked: the final summit declaration was signed off on without incident, and it included strong language identifying Russia as a “long-term threat” to Euro-Atlantic security and reaffirming commitment to Article 5, NATO’s mutual defense clause.
Still Doubts About Article 5?
The cornerstone of the military alliance is Article 5, stating that an attack on one of the 32 NATO allies is an attack on all.
And despite assurances from various US officials in the run-up to the summit that the United States was totally committed to it, Trump appeared to throw a curveball when speaking to the media before jetting out to the Netherlands by stating that “there are numerous definitions of Article 5.”
This made European diplomats pulses race for a while.
Speaking to RFE/RL under condition of anonymity, they pointed out that there is only one definition, but that there could be different definitions of what types of “assistance” allies must provide in the event of another ally being attacked.
Article 5 has only been triggered once in NATO’s 76-year history -- by the United States after the 9/11 attacks.
This led to the war in Afghanistan, although not all NATO members put boots on the ground there.
In the end, Trump appeared to tone down his previous statement by noting in his press briefing with the secretary-general that “we are with them all the way” while referring to other NATO partners.
5 Percent Spending On Defense -- A Realistic Target?
This was the one decision taken in the Hague.
The 32 allies committed to a new defense spending target -- in 2035 they should all devote 5 percent of GDP to defense.
Of this, 3.5 percent must go to core defense spending and the remaining 1.5 percent should be spent on various things, including boosting critical infrastructure, ensuring civil preparedness, and propping up Ukraine.
Now, the question, of course, is if they will actually manage to meet this target.
The final summit declaration alludes to a review in 2029 -- a year in which Trump should have left the White House.
Allies, such as Spain, complained ahead of the summit about how unrealistic the target is.
Madrid was mollified by some linguistic wizardry -- instead of noting that NATO members "commit to invest 5%," the wording that was agreed upon reads: “allies commit to invest 5%.”
It seems this subtle word change apparently gives some leeway on how the target can be interpreted.
Is it a Spanish opt-out?
Probably not, but time will tell.
Don’t be surprised, however, if this “Hague pledge” ends up the same way as the “Wales pledge” agreed in 2014.
Back then, the goal was to reach 2 percent of GDP defense spending by 2024.
A handful NATO countries have still not reached that goal to this day.
Ukraine NATO Membership Clearly Off The Table
The NATO summits in Vilnius in 2023 and Washington in 2024 were about one thing: finding ways -- verbal or otherwise -- to bring Ukraine closer to the military alliance without offering an outright invitation to join.
There was talk of “bridges” to membership and that Ukraine's path to the club was “irreversible.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the most sought-after person at these gatherings, where he pushed the allies to do more both militarily and diplomatically for his war-torn country.
What a difference a year makes.
Trump made it clear early in his presidency that Ukraine would not be joining NATO any time soon, and the question has simply faded away.
At the Hague summit there was not even a NATO-Ukraine Council, meaning Zelenskyy had to content himself with attending various side events and the social summit dinner with spouses.
There was no language on membership in the Hague declaration, the shortest summit statement on record.
The only reference to Kyiv in the five paragraphs was a brief passage that said “allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and, to this end, will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defense and its defense industry when calculating Allies’ defense spending.”
It was quite telling that -- when Zelenskyy gave press comments alongside Rutte and the EU’s Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen -- there wasn’t a single word about Ukrainian membership.
Once again, NATO is now all about collective defense, not adding new members.
