The address "dad" NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's speech to US President Donald Trump was aimed at keeping the alliance united, The Financial Times reports.
Rutte made the statement in the summer of 2025 while speaking to reporters at the alliance's summit in The Hague, commenting on Trump's remarks about Iran and Israel, saying that “we essentially have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the hell they're doing“.
“Dad sometimes has to use strong language to stop him“, the NATO secretary general said at the time.
Two people who negotiated with the secretary general when he was prime minister of the Netherlands said Rutte always used “industrial charm“. "Flattery, extreme loyalty and behind-the-scenes efforts to win everyone over," said one.
This trait was also evident during Rutte's summer speech, when Trump demanded a sharp increase in defense spending from European countries.
"As NATO secretary general, his main job is to keep everyone on the same page, which is not easy. If Rutte has to flatter to achieve a result that will make everyone say: 'Thank God, everything went well,' then that is exactly what he will do," said Robert de Groot, a former Dutch ambassador to the EU and vice president of the European Investment Bank.
He said Rutte "deeply delves into what motivates his interlocutors" and then “builds on that“.
The Financial Times has learned that Trump and Rutte have reviewed the status of the US military in Greenland.
Following his statements this summer, Rutte said that he did not call the US president “dad“, but used the word “dad“ to show that NATO member states were asking, like “a small child“, whether the US would remain in the alliance.
However, the NATO secretary general previously explained that he used the word “dad“ when talking about Trump because he deserved praise.
During his first term, Trump demanded that NATO allies spend more on defence. In his new term, Trump called for that figure to be increased to 5%. In early April, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured that the US would remain a member of NATO, but the alliance must become more viable.
Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to withdraw the country from NATO, criticizing the allies for insufficient defense spending. In early December 2025, Republican Representative from Kentucky Thomas Massie introduced a bill to withdraw the United States from the alliance. He argued that the United States should use the funds to defend its own country, “not socialist countries“.