The assembled leaders agreed on Wednesday to support Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” although the language had been the subject of intense negotiations in recent weeks. President Biden Initially, I was opposed to using the word “irreversible.”
Four other countries also made announcements on Wednesday. F-16 fighter jets donated to Ukraine to begin operation later this summerAllied leaders also accused China of “decisively supporting” Russia’s war in Ukraine, delivering their toughest words yet to Beijing.
But for all the efforts to strengthen the alliance, Trump’s shadow hung over the summit at the Washington Convention Center, as European leaders quietly wondered if this was a farewell to a U.S. president whose emphasis on the transatlantic agenda was a bipartisan staple of U.S. foreign policy from World War II until Trump took over the White House in 2017.
“If Trump is elected a second time, I think it’s a very clear sign of the direction the US is heading in from a European perspective,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the transatlantic security program at the Center for a New American Security think tank. “So while they can counter Trump for the next four years, there’s a growing concern that in the long term the US may become less engaged in Europe.”
Few European policymakers believe that President Trump will formally withdraw from NATO. Congress recently The bill binds the country to its allies and would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate to repeal.
But many fear Trump will bring a much more transactional approach to the alliance, and some are taking seriously his pledge to review whether the United States is meeting its defense spending commitments. Before deciding whether to help them How NATO would respond if attacked has become a hot topic of conversation among NATO policymakers in Washington about how to respond to Trump, along with the related question of whether Biden will give up reelection.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday downplayed concerns about President Trump’s reelection.
“Under former President Trump, and also under other US presidents, the main criticism was not of NATO, but of NATO allies not investing enough in NATO. But that has changed,” he told reporters. “The clear message has worked, because now allies are really moving forward.”
Asked whether European leaders were discussing Trump behind closed doors, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Storre told The Washington Post in an interview: “No, no one would believe me.”
During their time in Washington, many of the leaders have had the opportunity to talk privately with potential Trump foreign policy candidates. Keith Kellogg, a retired military officer who served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and who still advises Trump, said last month that he has received 165 briefing requests from foreign officials since November and granted 100 of them. Kellogg noted that he was not speaking officially for Trump or the Trump campaign.
Many international policymakers, including the leader of Ukraine, which has the most to lose, are holding back on betting on a Trump return to the presidency, as was demonstrated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech on Tuesday to a crowd of Republican dignitaries and European diplomats at the Reagan Institute.
Zelensky was careful not to comment directly on the US elections but called on Biden to allow Ukraine to use US long-range weapons to attack military bases on Russian territory “without waiting for November or any other events.”
Later, when asked by Fox News host Bret Baier how closely he was following the US presidential election, he replied: “Sometimes I think I’m watching it more closely than you, Bret,” drawing laughter from the audience.
Ukrainian leaders said they were keen to transcend a tumultuous US presidential election, mindful of their role in President Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. As president, Trump delayed defense aid to Ukraine while pressing for evidence of Biden’s alleged corruption in Kiev.
“We don’t have to adapt to every political process. We have to make sure we protect our survival from the political process,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishina said in an interview.
NATO policymakers have been seriously debating for months how to handle a Trump resurgence, and after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration resisted NATO taking a direct role in providing military aid to Kyiv to avoid Russia’s perception that NATO was fighting directly with Moscow.
That reluctance has faded as Ukraine’s early heroics have been tempered by recent Russian battlefield victories, while Trump has surged in the polls and European concerns have grown. NATO policymakers agreed in the run-up to the summit to create a new NATO command that would take on many of the coordinating roles previously played by the Pentagon.
Policymakers are quietly acknowledging there are limits to how much the alliance can do to protect itself from Trump’s threats, especially since Trump is not the only leader to question NATO’s policies toward Ukraine and Russia: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico also support similar policies.
Some leaders say a Trump presidency could be good for NATO, especially if it pressures lagging European nations to increase their defense spending.
“What I always say to Europeans is, ‘Stop panicking about Trump. You’ve done it before, you’ve done it for four years, but it hasn’t actually been that bad for Europe,'” Rachel Rizzo, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, said at a news conference. “Yes, the fiery rhetoric and the harsh words have made waves, but the policies that Trump has implemented towards Europe have not damaged NATO.”
The effort to boost spending has been backed by right-wing European leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Polish President Andrzej Duda, who support many of Trump’s immigration-skeptical policies but are also pro-Ukraine.
Trump and Duda “are friends. We understand each other’s values. We understand each other’s reliability when it comes to security obligations,” said Jacek Sieviela, Duda’s national security chief.
Italy’s ambassador to the United States, Mariangela Zappia, said NATO’s core interests could survive the election.
“The NATO summit will be an opportunity to see how democracies can choose different paths but ultimately come together on principles – in this case, that borders cannot be changed by aggression,” she said.
Pro-NATO policymakers are hoping to manage divisive policy initiatives under the leadership of next Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the longtime Dutch prime minister who has met with Trump multiple times and is known for deftly managing tensions at times.
That would put him in the tradition of Stoltenberg, who was praised for finding ways to work with Trump during his administration.
“He made a very conscious decision not to pick a fight with the president of the United States, not to challenge him publicly or privately and never to be seen speaking about him,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO deputy secretary-general and now a distinguished policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Oana Lungescu, who served as NATO spokesperson from 2010 to 2023 and is now a fellow at the London-based Royal Institute for Security Studies, said Stoltenberg’s team created a single, easy-to-read chart showing Europe’s defense spending growth. Allies also looked for ways to give credit to Trump for encouraging allies to increase their defense spending.
“The numbers are real. It’s how you shape them and how you use them that matters.” [to show] It’s working, and NATO is winning,” she said.
Rutte, 57, who served as prime minister of the Netherlands for 14 years, orchestrated the country’s political coalition and is seen as a capable and astute diplomat with a straightforward, pragmatic style who is committed to the transatlantic relationship and will do anything to protect it, according to people who have worked with him.
“President Trump believes deeply in Western cooperation as a force for projecting Western values on the world stage and he will be vocal about that,” said a senior European official who has worked closely with Trump for many years, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Now famous 2018 Oval Office ExchangeWhen President Trump made an off-the-cuff remark on trade, suggesting he would be “positive” even if the United States and Europe could not reach an agreement, Foreign Minister Rutte fired back pointedly.
“No,” Rutte replied as Trump continued speaking. “It’s not a positive thing,” Rutte continued, smiling. “We have to find some solution.”
Trump shook hands and walked away.
“Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, Europe needs to act,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in an interview. “We have to take greater responsibility for Ukraine because it is in our backyard.”
Ellen Nakashima and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
