WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump praised NATO, saying that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is “stepping up” its funding.
Donald Trump met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House today. At a press conference afterwards, it was clear that the two men had a cordial meeting. Trump said that Rutte, who took the post of NATO chief in October 2024, was “the right man,” and Rutte praised Trump for his contributions to discussions about peace in Ukraine and to an increase in European defense spending.
“What happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering,” said Rutte. “The Europeans committing to a package of 800 billion defense spending. The Germans now potentially up to half a trillion extra in defense spending. And then, of course, you had Kier Starmer, the British prime minister, and others all committing to much higher defense spending.”
The NATO secretary general said that NATO was not “there yet” but that he was looking forward to working further with Trump so that, under the American president’s leadership, NATO is “really invigorated.”
Rutte added that NATO needs to produce more weaponry, saying that “we are lagging behind when you compare [with] the Russians and the Chinese.”
Regarding Ukraine, the NATO secretary general praised Trump, telling him, “You broke the deadlock. […] I really want to commend you for this.”
Trump then spoke, saying that when he first went to NATO, he noticed that very few members were paying – or, if they were, “they weren’t paying what they were supposed to be paying.”
“And even the paying, it was a two percent [of national GDP], which is too low. It should be higher. It should be quite a bit higher,” he said.
“And I didn’t think it was appropriate to bring it up there, but I said, it’s going to be brought up at my next meeting. The first meeting, I want to give them a little break,” he joked.
“The second meeting, it began. And I was able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars. I just said, we’re not going to be involved with you if you’re not going to pay. And the money started pouring in and NATO became much stronger because of my actions and working along with a lot of people, including Mark [Rutte],” Trump continued.
“The money started coming in by the billions and hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into NATO, and NATO became strong.”
Trump also praised Rutte, saying that “NATO is stepping up for this man. This man is a man that only knows how to step up. And we have the same goal in mind. We want the war [in Ukraine] ended. And he’s doing his job. He only knows how to do a good job.”
The meeting followed an earlier report that Trump does not believe all the members of the now 80-years-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization pull their weight. According to NBC, Trump has indicated that he doesn’t want the U.S. to give military assistance to members of NATO who do not spend a set amount of their GDP on defense. This policy would be in contradiction of the treaty’s Article 5, which says that all members must help defend any member under attack.
NATO currently has 32 members, the most recent to join being Sweden in 2024. According to NATO, different countries contribute in different ways. For example, Iceland has a coastguard but not a standing army.
According to the BBC, NATO expects all of its members to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense, but Belgium and Canada do not do that. The greatest contributors to NATO’s $4.1 billion budget are the U.S. and Germany (16 percent each) and the United Kingdom (11 percent). Poland, which has taken in 1.5 million refugees from neighboring Ukraine, has pledged to increase its own contribution from over two percent to over four percent of its GDP and will be offering basic training to all male citizens of military age. During today’s press conference, Trump praised Poland’s earlier contribution, saying he was impressed that they had paid more than expected and “they’ve been actually terrific.”
Rutte took office as the NATO chief in October 2024, following 14 years as the prime minister of the Netherlands. He is the longest serving Dutch prime minister to date and strongly pushed a pro-LGBT agenda. Before his political career, he worked for Unilever, a British multinational consumer packaged goods company, ascending through its ranks as a human resources professional.