In NATO memory, we have never experienced such a tense summit. On this morning of July 12, 2018, the leaders of the member states are gathered in the Council room of the brand new headquarters of the Atlantic Alliance, in Brussels, when Donald Trump speaks. “You are not spending enough” on your armed forces, far from the objective of 2% of GDP, and you are relying too much on the United States, he reproaches them, pointing the finger at them, one after the other. the other, before threatening to withdraw American support.
Aware that a crisis is brewing, Angela Merkel gets the room to empty in favor of a tighter format to find a path to calm. “The German Chancellor is one of the people who allowed everything to end well,” remembers Camille Grand, then Deputy Secretary General of NATO, who attended the sequence. Mark Rutte as well.” The Dutch Prime Minister saves the situation by telling the Republican that European spending is already on the rise and that the credit goes to him – satisfied, the billionaire then brags about it in front of the press.
“With him, it is difficult to bet that everything will go well automatically,” recalls Camille Grand, now a researcher at the European Council for International Relations. More than six years after experiencing this “blow”, NATO members are trying to reassure themselves about the return of Donald Trump. The storm has already passed once and nothing damaging has happened. If she comes back, we will be able to face her. This is the mindset – but it is dangerous.
Avoid “every man for himself”
Because the situation has radically changed. In Europe, NATO’s original adversary, the Kremlin, is waging a frontal war against Ukraine which has been resisting, thanks to Western support, for almost a thousand days. And in the United States, “Donald Trump has displayed a more radical program, with a MAGA partisan base [“Make America Great Again”, “rendre à l’Amérique sa grandeur”] anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian, which he will have to satisfy, underlines Muriel Domenach, French ambassador to NATO until last summer. At the same time, there will no longer be those around him who we called ‘the adults in the room’.”
These advisors, like Generals Mattis, McMaster and Kelly, managed to moderate the president’s impulses. All of them have since criticized their former boss, now resolved to surround themselves with collaborators who will not contradict him. “Are we going to end up with people who will be the caricature of what we have known, to the point of wanting to be more Trumpist than Trump? asks Camille Grand. In any case, Europeans must avoid every man for himself, in order to have a coordinated message on support for Ukraine, and take greater responsibility for their security.”
To their credit, more than twenty countries, out of 32, today exceed the equivalent of 2% of GDP in military spending. And all are committed to increasing their defense budgets for the years to come. These arguments, as well as possible new proposals aimed at giving Trump confidence, will be put forward by Mark Rutte, who became NATO Secretary General this fall. “He is the right person in the right place, he has always had a good relationship with Trump,” argues Polish researcher Tomasz Smura of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation.
It remains to be seen what Donald Trump expects from his European allies. “If he clearly said that he wanted to achieve peace in Ukraine, there is more vagueness about his intentions vis-à-vis NATO,” underlines Martin Quencez, deputy director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund. , a transatlantic think tank, one thing is certain, it will seek to obtain what it considers to be in the interests of the United States. In particular, he could require European allies to buy ever more American military equipment, whether F-35 combat planes, armored vehicles or artillery.
“He wants to see the figures increase, it is very important for him to be able to tell his electorate and the world that his action forces the European allies to spend a lot on their defense, continues Martin Quencez. This allows him to compare himself to Obama and to Biden and to claim that they tried to do the same thing, but failed.” A psychological dimension of which its NATO “allies” have already taken the measure.
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