{"id":44747,"date":"2026-04-26T13:33:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T13:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44747\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T13:33:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T13:33:30","slug":"trump-again-hits-out-at-nato-over-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44747\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Again Hits Out at NATO Over Iran War"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump has hit out at NATO after a tense meeting with Mark Rutte, the secretary general of the military alliance, at the White House on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rutte had traveled to Washington to try to assuage Mr. Trump\u2019s anger<\/a> that NATO members had refused to participate in the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and help open up the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas shipping route. But Mr. Rutte conceded that it was not an easy meeting, calling it \u201cvery frank\u201d and \u201cvery open,\u201d despite clear disagreements.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, who has also complained that the alliance has refused to hand over Greenland<\/a>, a semiautonomous territory of NATO member Denmark, to the United States, was not satisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cNATO WASN\u2019T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON\u2019T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,\u201d he wrote on social media<\/a> after the meeting. \u201cREMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump did not say that he was pulling the United States out of NATO, however, which was a topic to be discussed<\/a> during the meeting, the White House said.<\/p>\n

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Wednesday quoted Mr. Trump as saying that NATO was \u201ctested and they failed.\u201d NATO countries, she added, had \u201cturned their backs on the American people\u201d who help fund their defense.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rutte said on CNN<\/a> that he reminded Mr. Trump that many NATO allies, including Britain, had allowed American forces to use their bases, even if some tried to distinguish between American missions that were \u201cdefensive\u201d or \u201coffensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies, and I can see his point,\u201d Mr. Rutte said. \u201cBut at the same time, I was also able to point to the fact that the large majority of European nations has been helpful with basing, with logistics, with overflights, with making sure that they live up to the commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIt\u2019s, therefore, a nuanced picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on whether Mr. Trump threatened to quit NATO, Mr. Rutte said only: \u201cIt was a very open discussion. He clearly told me what he thought of what happened over the last couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Rutte has been called the \u201cTrump whisperer\u201d for his mix of public flattery and private advice to the president. But his approach has been criticized by some NATO states<\/a>, especially for supporting Mr. Trump\u2019s decision to launch a war with Iran that many members of the alliance view as unnecessary and illegal under international law.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, who spoke with Mr. Trump on Wednesday, said that he did not want the war in Iran to put further pressure on the alliance. <\/p>\n

Germany would help \u201cstabilize\u201d peace once the conflict ended, he told reporters on Thursday in Berlin. \u201cWe want to ensure that this war, which has become a trans-Atlantic stress test, does not further strain the relations between the United States and European NATO partners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump has hit out at NATO after a tense meeting with Mark Rutte, the secretary general of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[26210,13624,307,2783,34,10383,389,3446,5667,67,74,13623],"class_list":{"0":"post-44747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-rutte","8":"tag-defense-and-military-forces","9":"tag-donald-j","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-international-relations","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-mark","14":"tag-mark-rutte","15":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","16":"tag-rutte","17":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","18":"tag-trump","19":"tag-united-states-international-relations"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116471267482783932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44747","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=44747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}