NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday welcomed President Donald Trump to the alliance summit at The Hague by praising him as a “man of strength,” a “man of peace,” and the “daddy” who got Iran and Israel to stop fighting.
SkyNews reported that Trump summed up the 12-Day War between Iran and Israel by calling them “two kids in a school yard,” saying, “They fight like hell. You can’t stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes. Then it’s easier to stop them.”
Rutte then responded, “Then, daddy has to sometimes use strong language,” SkyNews reported.
The NATO secretary was making a humorous allusion to Trump’s use of profanity when he complained about Iran and Israel breaking the ceasefire he had negotiated.
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing,” Trump grumbled to reporters on Tuesday.
Trump’s F-bomb was the most surprising bit of American ordnance to be dropped during the 12-Day War and, while the president was initially criticized for employing salty language in a public statement, he did manage to get everyone back onside with the ceasefire.
In fact, Trump said on Wednesday that Israel was “technically” right about Iran violating the ceasefire first and he was “proud” of the restraint Israel showed in its response.
Rutte also praised Trump for getting NATO members to commit to spending five percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense by 2035. These spending commitments include 3.5 percent of GDP for “pure” military funding, plus 1.5 percent for security infrastructure, intelligence, and cyber-warfare. The United States is one of the few NATO members that currently comes close to spending 3.5 percent of GDP on pure defense.
“This would not have happened if you would not have been elected in 2016 and re-elected last year… so I want to thank you,” Rutte, who strongly supported the 5 percent spending target, told Trump during their joint press conference.
Until now, most NATO members have struggled to spend two percent of GDP on defense. Trump has long accused the alliance of relying too much on America’s deep pockets and pushed for five percent across the board. He was still nudging a few members on Tuesday, criticizing Canada as a “low payer” and saying there was a “problem with Spain” that he might need to address personally.
“Spain is not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them, frankly,” Trump said.
Trump on Tuesday posted a congratulatory text message from Rutte in its entirety on his Truth Social account. Rutte saluted Trump for his “decisive action in Iran,” which he said was “truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do,” and which “makes us all safer.”
“You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening. It was not easy, but we’ve got them all signed on to five percent!” Rutte enthused.
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” he continued. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”
Trump, in return, praised his fellow NATO leaders for rising to the challenge of increased defense spending.
“I’ve been asking to go up to 5% for a number of years and they’re going up to 5%, from 2%, and a lot of people didn’t even pay the 2%. I think that’s going to be very big news. NATO’s going to become very strong with us,” the president said on Wednesday.
Rutte once again chimed in to state that “without President Trump, this would not have happened.” He predicted the results of the NATO summit would make a “big splash.”
Trump thanked Rutte for his support and reflected that the NATO alliance would never have considered meeting its spending obligations under his predecessor.
“When Biden was here it just died, it just died, like everything else died,” Trump said.
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