Donald Trump with Nato ‘all the way’ after questioning mutual defence pact

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Donald Trump has reassured Nato allies he is “with them all the way”, after spooking European capitals with his suggestion that the military alliance’s mutual defence pact was open to interpretation.

The US president met his 31 Nato allies in The Hague on Wednesday at a summit dedicated to their pledge to increase national defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP in exchange for securing Trump’s support to maintain America’s protection if their countries are attacked.

Asked about his commitment to Nato after he arrived at the summit, Trump said: “We’re with them all the way.”

“Nato is going to become very strong with us,” Trump said alongside the alliance’s secretary-general Mark Rutte ahead of a formal session that adopted the 5 per cent spending pledge by 2035 — something Trump had demanded.

Trump’s positive rhetoric suggested Rutte’s ploy to focus the gathering on increased defence spending and lavish the US president with praise had succeeded. The Nato official’s strategy also seemingly papered over concerns among European capitals over the scale of the fiscal pressure it will place on their budgets.

Trump’s affirmation of support for Nato came after he sparked alarm on his way to The Hague by telling reporters aboard Air Force One that Washington’s commitment to Nato’s Article 5, which refers to its mutual defence pact, “depends on your definition”.

Trump said there were “numerous definitions” of Article 5. “I’m committed to being their friends. I’m going to give you an exact definition when I get there.”

Rutte has strained to make the summit Trump-friendly, reducing it to a two-and-a-half hour discussion and praising him repeatedly.

“For too long, one ally, the United States, carried too much of the burden,” Rutte said as he opened the summit. “That changes today . . . Dear Donald, you made this change possible.”

Nato unity on the new spending goal has been challenged by Spain, which secured an opt-out by promising to fill the military capability gaps at a lower cost.

“Spain’s not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them,” Trump said on Air Force One on Tuesday.

He added that the US should also not pay the same as “everyone else”, arguing that European defence spending helped boost infrastructure and “we don’t have any roads in Europe, we don’t have any bridges in Europe”.

The US, by far the largest defence spender in Nato, is the alliance’s irreplaceable member state, with many European countries dependent on its long-range missiles, intelligence and surveillance assets.

While previous US presidents have demanded European allies spend more on defence, Trump has gone far further than his predecessors by linking Washington’s security support to their commitments.

He has also demanded that defence spending be “equalised” between the US and the rest of the alliance so American military assets could focus more on Asia and the Middle East.

“With the Trump administration, everything is a negotiation and everything is on the table,” said Sophia Gaston, research fellow at King’s College London. “Anybody who believes anything different is frankly naive.”