WASHINGTON — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is sitting down face-to-face with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, arriving just two weeks before the military alliance’s annual summit in Turkey at a critical moment when the Pentagon is weighing cuts to the American military presence in Europe.
Trump has long taken issue with NATO, insisting that the United States shoulders too large a portion of the alliance’s military spending. Those complaints have grown louder in the wake of the Iran war, with Trump expressing anger that some member nations ignored his call to help reopen oil trade through the closed Strait of Hormuz.
The president has once again raised the possibility of pulling the U.S. out of the 77-year-old alliance, heightening the pressure heading into next month’s NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey. Rutte, who has earned a reputation as a skilled handler of Trump’s moods, is expected to use Wednesday’s meeting to calm the president’s frustrations.
The White House visit follows a contentious appearance last week by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he sharply criticized allied nations and announced a six-month review of American forces stationed in Europe.
Hegseth echoed Trump’s complaints, faulting European allies for refusing to allow the U.S. to use European bases to carry out strikes against Iran. NATO allies were not brought into discussions before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on February 28, and several member countries have openly questioned Trump’s approach.
Trump has accused NATO allies of abandoning the United States and floated the idea of leaving the alliance, which was established in 1949 to defend European security against Soviet threats during the Cold War. The foundation of the NATO treaty is a mutual defense clause stating that an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. That clause has only been triggered once — following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, when allies rallied behind the United States.
The Pentagon’s signal that it may scale back its European military footprint to redirect attention to other global threats is the latest disruption for the 32-member alliance since Trump returned to the White House.
European allies were caught off guard last year when Trump threatened to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous island belonging to fellow NATO member Denmark.
A central part of Rutte’s role has become keeping the United States inside NATO, and he has shown a knack for defusing Trump’s anger.
Rutte regularly heaps praise on the president, giving him credit for pushing NATO members to boost their defense budgets. Trump pressured alliance leaders last year to commit to spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense annually by 2035.
On Tuesday evening, Rutte sat for an interview on Fox News Channel, a network Trump is known to watch closely.
During the interview, Rutte lavished praise on Trump, describing him as the driving force behind the NATO alliance and expressing full support for his Iran policy, saying:
