Trump’s whiplash NATO summit

President says US can go it alone if allies don’t meet spending target.

U.S. President Donald Trump | Christian Bruna/EPA

Donald Trump unleashed havoc at NATO on Thursday, threatening to pull out if America’s allies don’t boost military spending then praising the alliance as a “fine-tuned machine.”

The president disoriented NATO leaders for the entire two-day meeting, with a whiplash performance that included chiding Germany and delivering what one official called a “prolonged rant” on spending. It fits into his defined pattern of creating chaos at major summits, such as his blow-up at a G7 summit in Quebec.

Trump had upended the Brussels summit before it even began, unleashing a withering attack on Germany at a breakfast on Wednesday morning with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. He accused Germany of being “totally controlled” by Russia because of a controversial gas pipeline project called Nord Stream 2.

On Thursday, he arrived late — and apparently furious — at the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s top political decision-making body, and hijacked a meeting that was already in progress with the presidents of Ukraine and Georgia. Taking the floor, he warned of “grave consequences” if allies do not quickly ramp up their spending, and threatened that the U.S. could “go our own way” if they do not meet his demands.

While some officials, including French President Emmanuel Macron, said Trump never overtly threatened to abandon NATO, others interpreted it as a clear threat.

“Sometimes tweets are more important than what is negotiated,” Macron told reporters. “President Trump never at any moment, either in public or in private, threatened to withdraw from NATO.”

Word of Trump’s threat set off a wild game of telephone at NATO headquarters as officials and reporters tried to sort out what exactly he told fellow leaders.

Officials in the room said Trump appeared to be grasping for the best way to word his threat and ultimately said the U.S. would “go our own way.”

After Trump’s outburst, Stoltenberg quickly shifted the meeting into an emergency allies-only session to readdress the burden-sharing issue.

At a press conference later, Trump sidestepped a question about the threat, said he believed he had the authority to withdraw from NATO without congressional approval, and boasted that he had secured agreement for far larger spending commitments by allies. That claim was swiftly refuted by others including Macron, who said leaders did not alter their declaration in any way in response to Trump.

“There is a communique that was published yesterday,” Macron said. “It’s very detailed … It confirms the goal of 2 percent by 2024. That’s all.”

One NATO official said Trump wants a plan from alliance members by January on how to reach the spending target. Another senior NATO official said that Trump specifically demanded written spending plans from roughly 10 allies who have not yet submitted them.

Even the mere suggestion of the U.S. pulling out of NATO raises the worst fears that some allies have harbored since Trump was elected, after he declared during his presidential campaign that NATO is “obsolete.” Some allies, however, said Trump’s remarks are just another version of his consistently bellicose demands for higher military spending.

“I told people that I would be very unhappy if they don’t up their commitments very substantially because the United States has been paying a tremendous amount,” Trump said during a rambling half-hour news conference that also touched on his coming state visit to Britain and Monday’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

Pattern of disruption

Trump’s disruption of the NATO summit continues a pattern of tumult by the American president at major international gatherings. At the G7 last month, when the summit had reached a successful conclusion, he tweeted his fury from Air Force One and repudiated summit conclusions he had already agreed.

In Brussels, officials initially said Trump was more conciliatory, but he apparently became angry after reading news coverage that did not reflect his anger over allies’ reluctance to spend more on defense.

“I let them know, yesterday — I was surprised you didn’t pick it up — it took until today,” Trump told reporters. “Yesterday I let them know I was extremely unhappy with what was happening.”

There is no crisis in the United States about NATO.” — U.S. Senator Thom Tillis

The issue of spending, which NATO refers to as “burden sharing,” was discussed at an North Atlantic Council meeting on Wednesday and was not on the agenda for the second day. NATO leaders had already agreed their formal declaration, including reaffirming their commitments to increase spending in line with a 2014 pledge to work toward each ally spending at least 2 percent of their GDP by 2024.

Trump, however, said at Thursday’s session that was not sufficient.

Officials have repeatedly complained that Trump shows absolutely no regard for diplomatic protocol. He left Wednesday’s session for private talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Macron, but unlike his counterparts, he never returned to the room, where other leaders were making presentations intended largely for his ear. On Thursday morning, Trump returned to the spending issue, distracting from the discussion on Ukraine and Georgia, as he veered into topics meant for discussion solely among allies.

Continuing the chaos he spread on Wednesday, when he bashed Germany at breakfast but later claimed to have a “terrific” relationship with Merkel, Trump’s remarks at Thursday’s news conference did not reflect the anger he unleashed inside the discussion room.

“NATO is now really a fine-tuned machine,” Trump told reporters. “People are paying money that they never paid before.”

Asked what might happen if allies do not meet his demands, Trump said confidently, “They will.”

Merkel, speaking to reporters at the end of the summit, did not address Trump’s threat directly. “We had a fundamental discussion with all the NATO members because of the question that arose this morning — what do we have to do to improve our defense,” she said. “I made the point for Germany that we know we have to do more. But also, that we are doing this already since many years. The turnaround happened.”

Domestic opposition

As the NATO leaders were holding their emergency session following Trump’s outburst, two senior U.S. senators, attending a conference on the summit sidelines, said there was overwhelming bipartisan support for NATO in the U.S. Congress.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat focused on European affairs on the foreign relations committee, and Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, urged participants to focus on the substance of NATO’s achievements and to look beyond the president’s tweets.

“There is no crisis in the United States about NATO,” Tillis told the “NATO Engages” conference organized by the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Munich Security Conference and Women in International Security.

“Headlines and tweets are not a concern of the American public and they’re not a concern of the American Congress,” said Tillis, who is co-chair of the Senate’s NATO Observer Group.

Shaheen, the other co-chair of the NATO Observer Group, noted that Congress had responded to Trump’s threats towards the allies with a resolution adopted 97-2 supporting NATO and explicitly reaffirming the North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment.

Jacopo Barigazzi, Philip Kaleta, Paul Taylor and Tom McTague contributed reporting.

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