{"id":212910,"date":"2026-09-03T07:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/212910\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T07:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:56:31","slug":"natos-trump-whisperer-meets-the-president-in-an-effort-to-appease-him-before-next-months-summit-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/212910\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO’s Trump whisperer meets the president in an effort to appease him before next month’s summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte<\/a> laid on the flattery with President Donald Trump<\/a> on Wednesday, pressing the case for a military alliance that the volatile U.S. leader has sharply criticized as the Pentagon reviews the size of the U.S. military footprint<\/a> in Europe.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly slammed NATO<\/a>, arguing the U.S. carries more than its fair share of military spending. But his grievances have been louder since the Iran war<\/a>, as he fumed over the fact that some member countries ignored his call to help him restart oil trade through the shuttered Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t too nice to us in our recent little military skirmish,\u201d Trump said of NATO allies as he introduced Rutte during their Oval Office meeting. <\/p>\n

Subsequently pressed on what key U.S. allies could do to get back on his good side, Trump responded, \u201cJust be loyal.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need their money \u2014 we don\u2019t need anything,\u201d the president added. \u201cWe have the most powerful military in the world by far. But I just want loyalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has renewed his threats to leave the 77-year-old alliance, raising the stakes before the NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey next month. But Rutte, who has become known as a Trump whisperer<\/a> for his ability to charm the president, took on the now-familiar role of attempting to appease him anew. <\/p>\n

Rutte pushed back gently against Trump’s complaints, saying, \u201cI know there have been isolated cases about which you are really disappointed, but generally speaking, your European allies have been there with you.” <\/p>\n

He also noted that 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. planes took off from bases in Europe before Iran and the U.S. agreed to a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Rutte gushed about Trump having been \u201cvery harsh\u201d with defense contractors, saying, \u201cI had one of them over in my office. He was still trembling.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was a reference to Trump having held a series of meetings with Pentagon officials and leading military contractors at the White House recently, discussing ways to increase munitions production after the Iran war raised concerns about the U.S. eating into its stocks of missiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is your president, but also the leader of the free world, taking the leadership role, as is necessary,” Rutte told reporters in the Oval.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Defense Department is conducting a review<\/p>\n

The visit, Rutte’s fifth since Trump returned to power last year, comes after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week lashed out at allies<\/a> during a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels. His department is in the midst of a six-month review of U.S. forces in Europe. <\/p>\n

Hegseth echoed some of Trump\u2019s critiques, faulting European allies for not letting the U.S. use bases in Europe to attack Iran. NATO allies were not consulted about the war before the U.S. launched it with Israel on Feb. 28, and some have been openly critical of Trump’s strategy.<\/p>\n

Trump argues that NATO allies were not there for the U.S. and suggested leaving the alliance, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Cold War threat posed to European security by the Soviet Union. At the heart of their treaty is a mutual defense agreement in which an attack on one is considered an attack on all. The only time it has been invoked was in 2001, to support the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s warning that it will reduce its military presence in Europe<\/a> to focus on threats elsewhere was the latest upheaval for the 32-member alliance since Trump returned to office.<\/p>\n

The Republican leader stunned European allies last year when he threatened to annex Greenland<\/a>, a semiautonomous island that is part of ally Denmark. <\/p>\n

Earlier Wednesday, the leaders of five big European NATO allies \u2014 Germany, France, the U.K., Italy and Poland \u2013 met in Berlin to prepare for next month’s summit in Ankara, and Rutte joined them remotely.<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in remarks to reporters that the Ankara summit also should send the message that \u201cwe will do our part when the conditions are in place\u201d to support an Iran peace deal.<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron said, \u201cWe are in a moment of reconvergence between the Europeans and the Americans,\u201d and indicated that he hopes this will continue at the summit.<\/p>\n

Flattering Trump was a key objective <\/p>\n

During the meeting, Rutte gave a presentation using three boards on easels, touting U.S.-NATO ties. Joining Trump were Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials. <\/p>\n

After he was done, however, Trump spent long stretches not talking about NATO but instead boasting about his effort to beautify Washington. He even suggested that, two years ago, before he deployed the National Guard, the NATO chief might have “had a good chance of being mugged, although you\u2019re a very big guy.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey would have mugged him up. They would have beaten the hell out of him,\u201d Trump said to laughs. He further suggested that, previously, \u201cnobody wanted to go out\u201d in the nation’s capital and “even if you got into the restaurant, they’d rob when you were in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, a chief part of Rutte\u2019s mission these days is keeping the U.S. in NATO, and he\u2019s proven himself adept in the past at subduing Trump\u2019s frustrations.<\/p>\n

Rutte frequently credits Trump with getting NATO members to increase their defense spending<\/a>. The president last year pressured leaders to agree to invest 5% of their GDP annually in defense by 2035.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is completely committed\u201d to the NATO alliance, Rutte said after leaving the White House, though he added, \u201cI expect allies to spend more to equalize with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lengths to which Rutte is willing to go in praising Trump have at times raised eyebrows, such as when he referred to the president as \u201cdaddy\u201d during the alliance\u2019s summit last year.<\/p>\n

He then sent him a fawning text message<\/a> that employed one of Trump\u2019s favorite flourishes, capitalizing random words. \u201cEurope is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n

Trump shared the private message on social media<\/a> for the world to see.<\/p>\n

He did it again in January, blasting out another Rutte message<\/a> that closed with: \u201cCan\u2019t wait to see you. Yours, Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte laid on the flattery with President Donald Trump on Wednesday, pressing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[135],"tags":[12,389,18,1194,52],"class_list":["post-212910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-rutte","tag-donald-trump","tag-mark-rutte","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117206042708940295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}