For weeks, there has been speculation about whether Donald Trump will attend the NATO summit in The Hague. He has decided to attend, but before it begins, Secretary General Mark Rutte made sure to shape the meeting's agenda in a way that would appeal to the American guest.
On the way to The Hague, while still on the plane, Trump was asked what he thought of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which obliges member states to defend any NATO country if it is attacked. To which the American president replied vaguely: "It depends on the deficit". There have been many interpretations of what is written in Article 5: "But I commit to being their friend. Many of their heads of government have become my friends and I feel obligated to help them," Trump assured, quoted by ARD.
However, Max Bergmann, a political scientist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, doubts this. Asked by German public television whether the United States would defend Europe if Russia attacked a NATO country in the coming years, he commented as follows: "Honestly, if I were in Europe, I would not count on the United States government to provide me with protection."
Rutte with a series of compliments and gestures towards Trump
From the summit in The Hague, NATO member states are expected to raise defense spending to 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP). In this way, they are fulfilling a key demand of Donald Trump, adds ARD.
In this regard, Mark Rutte sent a message full of praise to Trump, which the American president shared on social networks. "Congratulations and thanks for your decisive actions in Iran, which were truly exceptional and no one else dared to take. This makes us more secure", Rutte wrote. He informed him that the Alliance countries had agreed to spend five percent of their GDP on defense and continued: "Europe will pay dearly, as it should, and this will be your victory". The former Dutch prime minister was forced to justify his text, but he emphasized that he did not see a problem with it.
This story clearly speaks of how strongly Trump dominates this NATO summit. This also applies to the topic of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky is also in The Hague, but he was not allowed to attend the central meeting of the 32 heads of state and government of NATO countries - for reasons related to the United States, assures military analyst Gustav Gressel: "The moment Ukraine comes up, the Americans will simply withdraw".
In this sense, this meeting is something like a "Trump summit", says Gressel, while Ukraine remains in the background, ARD points out.
Germany will achieve the goal by 2029.
The targeted 5 percent for defense is distributed as follows: 3.5 percent of GDP will be spent on armaments, and 1.5 percent will go to security-related investments in areas such as infrastructure and industry, for example for cyber defense or transport infrastructure.
With an annual defense budget of around 150 billion euros, Germany will succeed to meet the new target by 2029. In order to meet NATO's new military requirements, the German armed forces will have to be massively rearmed and modernized - both in terms of equipment and personnel. Chancellor Friedrich Merz made this clear in his statement before leaving for The Hague: "We will transform the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe, as our partners rightly expect", Merz said. And NATO is embarking on its biggest rearmament since the end of the Cold War.
Author: Tim Assmann ARD