June 24 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump was due to arrive in The Hague on Tuesday for his first summit-level meeting with NATO allies since returning to the White House in January, and in the aftermath of unprecedented U.S. airstrikes on Iran.
A cease-fire between Iran and Israel that he called for appeared to have faltered only hours after it came into force early Tuesday, with Jerusalem announcing fresh strikes against targets in Tehran in response to a barrage of Iranian missiles it claimed were fired after the start of the truce.
Trump reacted with displeasure to the reported breaches, telling ABC News before departing the White House early Tuesday he was “not happy” with either party, accusing both Iran and Israel of violating the cease-fire.
“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and dropped a boatload of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen, I’m not happy with Israel,” Trump said.
“OK, when I say now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So, I’m not happy with him. I’m not happy with Iran either,” he added, explaining that Israel’s response was an overreaction to missiles possibly fired by mistake by Iran that “didn’t land.”
The crisis in the Middle East was not on officially on the summit agenda but was expected to cast a cloud over the three days of meetings as it did at last week’s G7 meeting in Canada, although Trump is expected to spend a full day in The Hague this time around.
“Iran is going to be a big deal at the summit. It’s not a NATO topic per se, but leaders are going to want to talk to Trump about it,” a European official told Politico.
Trump will be hosted by the Dutch royal family at a dinner on Tuesday evening and take part in a NATO family photo call.
On Wednesday, he will attend the plenary session of the summit, attend more stage-managed group photo calls, hold bilateral meetings with leaders of other countries attending, and give a press conference before departing to fly back to Washington.
Getting the other 31 members of the defense alliance to formally commit to increasing defense spending from their current 2% of GDP commitment to 5% will be atop Trump’s agenda.
European leaders’ strategy for the summit was aimed at projecting unity by keeping the proceedings short and to the point while avoiding any public disagreements or drama.
To keep it that way, the closely managed gathering has been limited to the royal dinner, a closed-door working session of NATO leaders at the end of which a one-page communique will be issued.
The spending issue was likely to be just a matter of rubber-stamping the change, having already been settled at the weekend — with the exception of quibbling by Spain which claims the rise does not apply in its case as it only needs to spend 2.1% to meet required military capability targets agreed by defense ministers earlier this month.
Under the plan, NATO members are required to reach the target by 2035 — a compromise to give fiscally-challenged countries like Italy and Britain more time to come up with the cash.
Only 3.5% of the 5% is required to go on “hard defense.” The other 1.5% can be used for defense-related expenditure, including cybersecurity and boosting military mobility.
Trump has said the United States is exempt from the 5% target due to its disproportionate contribution to the defense of its NATO partners historically.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s long-standing honorary invitation to the main meeting was withdrawn in recognition of Trump’s relationship with his Ukrainian counterpart, which has soured in recent months — although he will still be at the summit.
However, the gathering is expected to reiterate NATO’s backing for Ukraine and unveil on Tuesday a new foreign-minister-level Ukraine-NATO Council. Military aid sent to Ukraine will also be counted as part of members’ defense spending totals in respect of the 5% commitment.
“It is a good path that has been found, under the current circumstances, to give the Ukraine issue a prominent place at this summit,” said a senior German official.
“Even more important is that the final declaration includes the continued support of NATO partners for Ukraine. That was important to us — we wanted to agree on that among the 32, not in smaller formats.”
