Europe

Now at the pinnacle of his career, Rutte told confidants that his overriding mission was to keep NATO together by keeping Trump and the U.S. committed to it. To win some room to push back with Trump in private, Rutte began bombarding him with public support and praise.

When texting Trump, Rutte would echo the president’s own syntax and hyperbole, keeping his messages congratulatory, with staccato sentences. He immersed himself in the role so thoroughly some heads of government who worked with him began describing him as an actor who never broke character.

Soon, European leaders were following his lead. Finland’s president and Norway’s prime minister started workshopping their text messages to Trump, talking about which words they should render in capital letters. Sometimes, the Norwegian leader preferred his Finnish counterpart to send a message. Nordic officials worried that the mere mention of Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize, could reopen a sore wound.

Often, the Europeans played Trump’s own terms back to him: When the president echoed Vladimir Putin’s dislike of a ceasefire in Ukraine, they started describing their peace plan, which amounted to a ceasefire, as “stop the killing.” Trump lectured top EU official Ursula von der Leyen for advocating sanctions on Russia, so she started referring to economic pressure as tariffs.

A succession of leaders visited the White House, hoping to carefully mold Trump with talking points hammered out in coordination calls, to avoid any open disagreements. Weeks into Trump’s second term, Macron visited to discuss NATO and Ukraine. The two spent hours together, and the U.S. president seemed open to his ideas. They used a tablet to dial into a video call led by Justin Trudeau. But as the Canadian prime minister was talking, Trump, frustrated with a technical issue that prevented him from chiming in, lobbed the device over the Resolute Desk and onto the floor, an official present said.

When Merz visited, he was surprised to find Trump “normal,” an official later said. Trump listened, asked questions, seemed open to new information and knowledgeable about some topics—though surprisingly unaware of others, including the military situation in Ukraine. During their chat, Trump told Merz he had something to show him, and walked the chancellor of Germany into a small study off the Oval Office. It was, Trump announced, “the Lewinsky room” and he had filled it with MAGA memorabilia, including red hats and boxes of Florsheim dress shoes. “Just grab whatever you want,” a congenial Trump told his German guests, adding that their wives could sell the swag for “thousands of dollars.”

Rutte’s flattery seemed to be keeping Trump engaged with NATO—until April, when Trump’s new NATO ambassador, Matthew Whitaker, arrived at the alliance’s Brussels headquarters with a message from Washington: 3.5% of GDP wouldn’t cut it. The target was 5% by 2035. And they would need to pledge it by NATO’s coming annual summit in June.

NATO countries along Russia’s borders saw the logic—but others were stunned.

To ease the financial pain, Whitaker offered a plan under which the 3.5% for military investment could be topped-up by another 1.5% of GDP for “security-related investments,” like airport runways, meteorological services and cybersecurity, which countries were already forking out. Rutte quickly bought into the idea, reassuring holdouts: Certain bridges and tunnels could be deemed vital conduits for a potential war with Russia. In private, he prodded European colleagues: The headline number was the “win” Trump needed. In practice, they knew, no one was going to force fiscally constrained governments to meet the goal, 10 years away.

As NATO’s 2025 summit in The Hague neared, vocal holdouts remained. Belgium and Slovakia fell in line only after Rutte said contributions to Ukraine could also be counted as military spending. Carney, Canada’s newly elected prime minister, supported the new spending goal—Trump was right about this, he told his colleagues. The unmovable country was Spain, whose socialist Prime Minister Sanchez insisted the 5% was an arbitrary number.

For 54 hours, NATO officials messaged back and forth with their Spanish counterparts, who refused to commit to the goal—which few of his neighbors were likely to actually fulfill. Ultimately, they agreed to disagree. Rutte said in a letter, which Sanchez published, that Spain could follow “its own sovereign path” to meet targets and would be assessed in 2029.

On June 24, Trump landed in The Hague, Rutte’s hometown, where the NATO secretary-general handed him a huge foreign-policy win. The alliance, Trump said, was no longer a rip-off for the U.S. One after the next, the West’s most powerful politicians took turns praising Trump in a closed-door session for strengthening the alliance he had threatened to leave. But Carney was more restrained—Trump would see through the praise, his aides reasoned, and think less of them for it.

Some leaders tried to lighten the mood. The Slovenian prime minister congratulated Trump for pressuring his country to raise defense spending, saying that if anybody knew how stubborn Slovenians could be, it was the husband of Melania Trump. Trump smiled at the joke. Bulgaria’s prime minister couldn’t help but notice how forced the whole performance felt.

“There was laughter in the room, but it masked deep anxiety,” said Rosen Zhelyazkov, the then-prime minister. “European leaders still clung to the belief that they could manage Donald Trump through diplomatic flattery and personal charm.”