The NATO Chief Is on an Alliance ‘Rescue Mission’ with Trump

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will meet President Donald Trump on Wednesday for what could be a tense tête-à-tête after Trump blasted allies for not backing his Iran war or his hopes of taking over Greenland.

While in Washington to soothe frayed ties, Rutte will also meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Rutte will give a speech at the conservative Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on Thursday.

The stakes are high: Trump’s threats have put the future of the 77-year-old security pact into question. A blowup could fracture the alliance at a moment of war in the Middle East and sharp tensions with Russia.

“It’s a rescue mission, in some ways, to try to keep the U.S. at least in the alliance,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official who oversaw Europe and NATO policy during the Obama administration.

The meetings come after Trump repeatedly told news outlets last week that he was strongly considering pulling the U.S. out of NATO. On Monday, he said his grudge with NATO traces back to the alliance’s opposition to his intense pressure campaign to take control of Greenland, the Danish-controlled territory.

“It all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland,” Trump said during a White House press conference. “We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us. And I said, ‘bye, bye.’”

The comment reopened a fight that rocked the transatlantic alliance earlier this year. Denmark reportedly took Trump’s threats so seriously that it planned for a potential U.S. invasion.

But it had since quieted down: Trump announced a framework deal on the issue in January and has largely stopped talking about Greenland, to the relief of squirming Hill Republicans.

Trump’s anger at NATO allies shifted to those he deemed insufficiently supportive of the war on Iran. For days, Trump has raged at European allies for refusing to send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial energy corridor. Spain and some other European allies have also denied the U.S. military access to bases as part of the Iran war.

Trump last week called the alliance a “paper tiger” and suggested the U.S. might leave NATO, which spurred U.S. lawmakers to push back, citing a 2023 law that would require a supermajority vote in the Senate before a president can pull out.

On Monday, the president said the lack of major cooperation from European capitals was “a mark on NATO that will never disappear” and that he was “very disappointed.”

Ahead of his meeting with Rutte, Trump signaled he would not be easily satisfied.

“They’re going to say, ‘Oh, we’ll do this. We’ll do that.’ Now they all of a sudden want to send things,” he said.

Townsend, the former Pentagon official, said Rutte could try to win over Trump by pointing out that U.S. forces have been able to use German bases to stage refueling aircraft and U.K. bases for defensive strikes on Iranian missile sites. But Trump wants vocal support from alliance nations that he’s unlikely to get.

“Unfortunately, there’s a track record of following the U.S. into a quagmire in the Middle East,” Townsend said. “So a lot of nations are hesitant to just salute and say ‘yes, sir’ and march off into something that they don’t even know what the end game is.”

Rutte has previously played down the rift. “In the alliance, you will always have different views,” he said last month. “But when it comes to not accepting Iran having a nuclear and missile capability, we all agree ... What the United States is doing now is degrading that capability. And yes, I applaud that.”

Trump has called Rutte a friend and said he’s done “a fantastic job.” He also credited Rutte for helping his push to raise defense spending among NATO allies.

Celeste Wallander, a former Pentagon chief for international affairs, said leaders in Europe are increasingly skeptical that Rutte’s mollifying approach is working. They’re instead calling for moves to “stand up for themselves and push back.”

“He doesn’t speak for Europe at this point,” Wallander said of Rutte. “There is increasing discomfort with the sense that instead of taking a stand in defense of NATO and in defense of European countries, that Rutte is … apologizing for them when there’s nothing to apologize for.”

Wallander warned that leaving NATO would not only contradict U.S. law but strip the U.S. of key access to bases that underpin military power projection.

“It’s not a one-way street,” she said. “Europe provides capabilities that are of serious military advantage to the United States for global operations, including in the Middle East.”