Tense equation between NATO’s European members and Trump

At the beginning of the NATO summit in Ankara this week, US President Donald Trump declared his disappointment with the European members of NATO, and praised Turkiye, the host and the lone Asian member of the Western military alliance. Trump agreed to the sale of F35 jet fighters to Turkiye and lifted the sanctions on Turkiye for buying the Russia S400 missile system. After the meeting, he changed his tone, and said that there was a lot of love and unity among the NATO members in the meeting. But he singled out Spain as the bad egg in the basket as it were, and declared that the US would not do any trade with Spain, and the it would come running back to the US.

It is these mood swings of the mercurial American president that keeps NATO members on the hook as it were. The man keeping Trump humoured is NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, former prime minister of the Netherlands. Rutte is convinced that there cannot be no NATO without the US, even as some of the other members, especially French President Emmanuel Macron, feel that it is time for parting og ways, that the US Is not interested in Europe any more, and that Europe must end its dependence on the US and begin the task of standing on its own fee, especially in matters of defense an security. Rutte is not convinced. He told the media after the meeting, “There is, of course, one dominant player in the room – let’s be honest. The United States on its own is half of NATO’s economy, and the military might of the US is unparalleled and is as big as the rest of the NATO combined.”

Some of the European NATO members feel that Rutte is trying hard to curry favour with Trump, and that it is not necessary for Europe to do so. He firmly believes that the rift with between US and its European allies undermines the credibility of NATO in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.

European security concerns are centred round Russia, arising out of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. European countries are convinced that Russia poses a threat to Europe as it did during the Cold War. Then Russia was the Soviet Union, and it dominated the eastern part of the continent through the communist bloc and the counter[art of NATO—the Warsaw Pact. With he collapse of the communist government in all of the east European countries, starting with then East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the communst threat posed by Soviet Union had disappeared. But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 had brought back the old ghosts.

A major demand of Trump is that the European members of the NATO must increase their defense spend, and that Europe cannot expect the US to bear the financial burden. Trump’s target is that the NATO members should increase the defense budget to 5 per cent of their respective GDP. European countries, many of who are facing economic stress at various levels, have committed to increase their defense spend, though not all of them will be able to meet the 5 per cent. But what riled Trump is the refusal of NATO’s European members from joining the war against Iran when Trump requested for help. The European countries were not convinced of Trump’s strategic plan with regard to Iran. And it is this refusal that rump considers as betrayal, and it is something that he is neither willing to forget or forgive. Though Trump has come round to the view that that Ukraine needs military support in the war against Russia, he does not show the ideological determination that underlies NATO’s stance against Russia, that Putin’s Russia poses a threat to European democracy.