President Donald Trump departs early Tuesday for the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, simply days after he made the choice to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear websites and hours after he introduced a cease-fire within the Israel-Iran battle. Will probably be the primary time Trump will face European U.S. allies since returning to the White Home in January.
On the eve of Trump’s departure, Iran carried out retaliatory strikes at a U.S. base in Qatar. Trump stated Monday that 13 of these missiles had been intercepted and a 14th was off beam.
“I’m happy to report that NO Individuals had been harmed, and hardly any injury was carried out,” Trump posted on social media, including that Iran gave the U.S. “early discover.”
Then hours later, Trump posted on his social media platform that the 2 international locations had agreed to a cease-fire that might finish hostilities.
“It is a Conflict that would have gone on for years, and destroyed your entire Center East, nevertheless it didn’t, and by no means will!” Trump posted early Monday night.
The battle will undoubtedly loom massive over this summit simply because it did with the G7 Summit in Canada final week — which Trump left early to watch the rising disaster between Israel and Iran again on the White Home.
The journey shall be transient. Trump is predicted to go away the White Home early Tuesday morning and return to the U.S. on Wednesday night. Upon his arrival within the Netherlands on Tuesday night time, Trump will head straight into the pomp and circumstance. He’ll attend a proper dinner on the Netherlands Royal Palace alongside the King and Queen of the Netherlands. He will even take a NATO household picture that night.
On Wednesday, Trump will attend the NATO summit the place he’ll take part in a NATO household picture, a photograph spray on the high of NATO Secretary Basic Mark Rutte’s remarks after which the primary plenary session with NATO leaders. The president will then spend a number of hours engaged in bilateral conferences, though it isn’t not but identified which leaders he plans to satisfy with on the sidelines of the summit. Trump will then maintain a information convention the place he will certainly face questions on his order to strike Iranian nuclear websites and the influence of that mission. After the information convention, Trump is ready to go away the Netherlands and return to the U.S.
Trump goes into the convention with a key precedence: he desires the alliance to codify a rise in protection spending throughout all member nations, from 2% of their gross home product to five%. This has been a signature subject for Trump properly earlier than the brand new Center East battle. The president has lengthy complained that the U.S. has been subsidizing the protection of its allies — and has even gone as far as threatening that he wouldn’t come to the protection of countries not totally paying their means, a radical departure from NATO’s Article 5, which says an assault on one is an assault on all.
Trump’s criticisms return so far as the 2017 NATO summit, when he accused his European counterparts of failing to pay what he stated was their “fair proportion.”
Although Trump’s high advisers have signaled confidence that the 5% threshold shall be agreed to by a vote at this 12 months’s summit, some nations like Spain produce other plans. Spain’s prime minister introduced over the weekend that it cast an settlement that may permit it to stay in NATO with out assembly the brand new protection spending threshold, as a substitute contributing solely 2.1% of the nation’s GDP.
Trump has a number of different goals for the convention, together with urging alliance members to revitalize their industrial capacities for essential minerals and weapons and bilateral conferences with world leaders to reaffirm a dedication to allies, a senior administration official stated final week in a name previewing the journey.
Within the time since Trump final attended a NATO summit, Russia invaded Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine has raged on for greater than three years and Trump has repeatedly claimed it could not have occurred if he had been in workplace. He has additionally blamed the conflict on Ukraine’s want to affix NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been a featured visitor at NATO summits for the reason that conflict, together with the one former President Joe Biden hosted in Washington final 12 months, nevertheless it’s reported that Zelenskyy’s involvement shall be restricted this 12 months — together with not having a seat on the desk.
That is additionally Trump’s first NATO summit of his second time period, a reemergence within the alliance that he sharply criticized throughout his first time period. It additionally comes after many NATO leaders have already returned to the White Home for bilateral conferences to debate key points and to realize favor with Trump. Underneath the shadow of the rising battle within the Center East, world leaders shall be watching intently for a way Trump will enact his America First coverage in his second time period and the way that coverage will influence American alliances abroad.
ABC Information’ Aïcha Elhammar contributed to this report.
