Rutte defends Trump: “Fully committed to NATO, he’s right about Arctic”

Brussels – Mark Rutte pours oil on troubled waters. And after defusing the conflict within the Atlantic Alliance arising from Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland’s sovereignty, he emphasises the merits of the aggressive American president in raising the issue of Arctic security. Speaking at a hearing in the European Parliament, the NATO Secretary General defended what is still his main shareholder: “Trump is doing many positive things” and “is totally committed to NATO,” Rutte pointed out to the MEPs pressing him. 

Territorial ambitions, verbal attacks, and commercial threats against the EU, the dissemination of text messages exchanged a few hours before the Davos speech: Rutte swallows the bitter pill and takes on the role of mediator, because ultimately, “if anyone thinks that the EU can defend itself without the United States, they can keep dreaming.” The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands offered a dose of realism to the members of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and Defence Subcommittee. Rather than digging in his heels, he argues that it is in the interests of NATO—and the EU—to try to ease tensions and accommodate the whims of the White House.

On the other hand, “do you really think that Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Canada would have decided to increase their military spending from 1.5 to 2 per cent of GDP if it weren’t for Trump?” Rutte pressed. Let’s give credit where credit is due: without the threat of US disengagement, it would have been “impossible” for Italy to spend “10 billion more”, or for all 32 NATO countries to commit to reaching the new 5 per cent target by 2035. 

The last-minute agreement with which Rutte has curbed—at least for now—Washington’s territorial ambitions remains a mystery. Its boundaries are blurred, partly because the Dutchman is “only” the Secretary General of the Alliance and does not have a negotiating mandate from the member countries. Rutte and Trump are said to have agreed on “two lines of work”: the first directly concerns NATO, which will have to “collectively take on greater responsibility for the defence of the Arctic,” while the second is to be dealt with between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland, and again concerns how to “prevent China and Russia from gaining military and economic access” to the region. Rutte throws up his hands on the discussion between Washington, Copenhagen, and Nuuk: “I have no mandate to negotiate for Denmark and Greenland,” he stressed. 

Keeping the two sides of the Atlantic together is also vital for Ukraine, because at the moment the EU “cannot provide Ukraine with what it needs” to defend itself today or deter future attacks from Moscow. “We all know that without the flow of weapons from the United States, we literally cannot keep Kyiv able to fight,” Rutte admitted.