President Trump’s relationship with the NATO alliance has been fraught, and his administration has taken significant steps to pull back from the war in Ukraine and to promote burden-sharing. The 2025 NATO summit in the Hague offers an opportunity to see which way the administration hopes to steer the transatlantic relationship.
In late June, US President Donald Trump will head to the Netherlands for the 2025 NATO summit, an affair which typically gives European, Canadian, and American leaders an opportunity to hobnob and issue strongly worded statements about issues of concern. But this summit could well indicate in which direction the Trump administration wants to steer the transatlantic relationship. This administration’s Europe strategy has thus far been characterized by shock and awe. Will that continue? How will Trump’s transactional foreign policy play out in the meeting of the world’s largest military alliance? Here are three key questions we’re watching in the lead-up to the summit:
Can European Leaders Appease Donald Trump? Or Will They Provoke His Ire?
There’s been a sea change in transatlantic relations since January. Joe Biden was so supportive of NATO that even former aides have criticized him for thinking “he was the President of NATO instead of the US.” The Trump administration, in contrast, has chastised the alliance, from Vice President J. D. Vance’s Munich Security Conference Speech to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s characterization of European partners as “pathetic.” But while it’s clear that Biden’s “all-love” transatlanticism – and his extreme focus on Europe and transatlantic issues – is over, the shift to Trump’s more transactional approach has hit Europeans uniquely hard. Few have figured out how to grapple with this transition. Indeed, the central question is whether there is any love left between the United States and its European allies. It’s difficult to predict what Trump’s reaction in the Netherlands will be. Smart money suggests that Trump will claim “no one was able to get allies to pay before” or similar sentiments. If European allies get away with just a few mean comments or slaps on the wrist, they should consider the summit a raging success.
European leaders also have a say in how the summit goes, and could easily spark offense with a touchy administration. Eye-rolls, however warranted, should be kept to a minimum. Their track record is not inspiring: during the last NATO summit President Trump attended (in London in 2019), he left early after European leaders were caught on a hot-mic making fun of him. More recently, the infamous meeting in the Oval Office with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky went off the rails when Vance and Trump perceived the Ukrainian leader talking down to them. French President Macron’s meeting with Donald Trump was seen similarly in Trump-supporting media, even as Macron was praised in the European press for ‘sticking it to the man.’
Thus far, only three European leaders have clearly figured out how to best achieve their nation’s interests during a Trump presidency: Victor Orban, Giorgia Meloni, and Keir Starmer. Orban and Meloni are unsurprising, given their ideological alignment with the new right in America, especially their emphasis on “western civilization” and immigration restrictions. Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki, also a right-wing populist, might join the ranks of Orban and Meloni at the summit, leaving more centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk at home. Starmer, on the other hand, has been a surprisingly effective advocate for British interests. As the Labour Prime Minister and former human rights lawyer, he may be the only world leader who enjoys being summoned to the Hague. But his good relations with Trump, and recent negotiation of the US-UK bilateral trade deal has shown that Starmer’s approach, the art of the flattery, still works.
At the NATO summit, European leaders have to choose: adopt this approach or opt for confrontation? Little irritates Europeans more than being lectured to by Americans. European leaders can either take the Starmer way – ignore American condescension and aim for concord – or try the Zelensky route, standing up to Trump and risking a spectacular blow up.
What Policy Outcomes Are We Likely to See?
Some NATO summits are boring, others are boring and end with a policy change. In 2022 during the Madrid summit, for example, NATO countries introduced a new force model, and doubled the size of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year’s summit offers a few possibilities for substantive policy change, though there’s unlikely to be anything as dramatic as the 2022 changes in concrete force deployments. At present, the most likely change in force posture would be unilateral: a pull-back of US troops, specifically those from more recent deployments, such as those stationed in Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary under the enhanced NATO forward presence plans. The Trump administration could also eliminate the European Deterrence Initiative. But both seem unlikely. On the European front, there’s a meeting next week in Brussels where defense ministers will discuss boosting weapons stocks – ground based air defense systems specifically. Presumably the policy will be announced at the summit and will aim at reducing over reliance on US defense manufacturers. However, this policy seems to be the European Sky Shield Initiative — a project aimed at building an integrated European air defense system — with new packaging.
More likely are new directives on allied defense spending. In 2006, NATO defense ministers agreed to target future military spending to the threshold of two percent of GDP on defense; this was formally agreed upon in 2014. Over a decade later, twenty-three out of the now thirty-two members spend two percent or more – though the vast majority have only reached that level in the past few years. Increased spending has been a consistent theme of Donald Trump’s approach to the alliance; in 2018, he told a NATO summit in Brussels that four percent was needed. Now, the administration is pushing five percent spending, with US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker saying, “Let me cut to the core of our message. 5%—peace through strength demands nothing less, and it demands it equally from all Allies.” European governments will likely push back, criticizing that just as they have hit the two-percent threshold, this administration moved the goal posts yet again.
However, most are taking Trump seriously. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has endorsed the five percent threshold, albeit while offering some creative accounting suggestions. He has proposed that members might spend three-and-a-half percent of GDP on ‘hard defense,’ with another one-and-a-half percent on related areas like infrastructure and cybersecurity. While infrastructure improvements and cybersecurity are necessary for a coherent European defense, we don’t yet know whether the new Trump administration will accept this interpretation. We also don’t know whether European states actually could meet the five percent (or are willing to make the difficult decisions to do so), creative accounting included. The UK defense review, released last week, committed to spend two-and-a-half percent of GDP on defense by 2027, and eventually three percent, both of which are well-below the benchmarks pushed by the administration.
If the Europeans can actually set three-and-a-half percent as a goal, the administration might be appeased, but it seems like European allies are starting to signal that even the three-and-a-half percent – let alone the five percent – benchmark might be unreachable. At the end of the day, Trump may be eager to take any spending concession from this summit as a ‘win.’ Yet Republican voters are increasingly skeptical of NATO, and whether increased spending will be enough to fully appease the administration – or prevent potential troop drawdowns from the continent – is uncertain.
Is This Summit the Nail in the Coffin for NATO? For Ukraine?
In 2019, French President Macron memorably told reporters that “what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO” because the United States was “turning its back on us.” That was, of course, before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine brought new life and purpose to the organization. The Biden administration dove into leading NATO, embracing the alliance’s renewed sense of mission – and its functionality. Much of the Ukraine aid and military assistance was coordinated via NATO, and Biden even announced “a bridge to NATO for Ukraine” at the 2024 Washington summit. But the return of Donald Trump suggests that the alliance’s longevity is still in question.
So far, the Trump administration clearly prefers to go-it alone, abandoning the NATO-centric strategy that defined Biden’s Ukraine policy. At the last Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in February 2025, Secretary of Defense Hegseth made it clear that the administration is unwilling to establish an unlimited commitment to Ukraine. He told shocked attendees that any “peacekeepers to Ukraine…should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission” and “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome.” Hegseth also emphasized in the same speech that European security should be the responsibility of European states, a worrying development for countries that have spent decades reliant on US assistance. He has declined to attend the next meeting of the contact group.
This summit might see similar statements aimed at pushing European allies to accept burden-shifting rather than burden-sharing. Europeans are already thinking about this issue and trying to find ways to work on their own security and defense outside of NATO, but progress is slow. Often, the difficult decisions – like defense industry consolidation, reinstating conscription, or massively raising spending – have been the necessary steps Europeans have been unwilling to make. States have used EU regulation to bolster their defense industries, and have set up a ‘coalition of the willing’ on Ukraine. But the coalition of the willing has proved somewhat ineffective; European states who pledged peacekeeping forces have needed to walk back some of their potential commitments and have faced issues buying weapons to send to Ukraine. They could make a new proposal at The Hague, announcing a new scheme to support Ukraine, but given that both NATO and the EU operate via consensus, prospects are slim.
Alliance Vibes
Though it may sound ridiculous, the most notable thing to look for at this summit will be tone. How Trump engages, what he or his cabinet secretaries say, and how Europeans respond are likely to be the most important parts of the 2025 NATO summit rather than significant policy deliverables. The atmosphere surrounding the summit might even shift over time (as Vice President Vance’s speech undoubtedly shifted the mood of the Munich Security Conference). But by the end of the summit, it will be clear whether the gathering was more like a funeral or merely a contentious family gathering. Until then, it’s anyone’s guess.
President Trump’s relationship with the NATO alliance has been fraught, and his administration has taken significant steps to pull back from the war in Ukraine and to promote burden-sharing. The 2025 NATO summit in the Hague offers an opportunity to see which way the administration hopes to steer the transatlantic relationship.
In late June, US President Donald Trump will head to the Netherlands for the 2025 NATO summit, an affair which typically gives European, Canadian, and American leaders an opportunity to hobnob and issue strongly worded statements about issues of concern. But this summit could well indicate in which direction the Trump administration wants to steer the transatlantic relationship. This administration’s Europe strategy has thus far been characterized by shock and awe. Will that continue? How will Trump’s transactional foreign policy play out in the meeting of the world’s largest military alliance? Here are three key questions we’re watching in the lead-up to the summit:
Can European Leaders Appease Donald Trump? Or Will They Provoke His Ire?
There’s been a sea change in transatlantic relations since January. Joe Biden was so supportive of NATO that even former aides have criticized him for thinking “he was the President of NATO instead of the US.” The Trump administration, in contrast, has chastised the alliance, from Vice President J. D. Vance’s Munich Security Conference Speech to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s characterization of European partners as “pathetic.” But while it’s clear that Biden’s “all-love” transatlanticism – and his extreme focus on Europe and transatlantic issues – is over, the shift to Trump’s more transactional approach has hit Europeans uniquely hard. Few have figured out how to grapple with this transition. Indeed, the central question is whether there is any love left between the United States and its European allies. It’s difficult to predict what Trump’s reaction in the Netherlands will be. Smart money suggests that Trump will claim “no one was able to get allies to pay before” or similar sentiments. If European allies get away with just a few mean comments or slaps on the wrist, they should consider the summit a raging success.
European leaders also have a say in how the summit goes, and could easily spark offense with a touchy administration. Eye-rolls, however warranted, should be kept to a minimum. Their track record is not inspiring: during the last NATO summit President Trump attended (in London in 2019), he left early after European leaders were caught on a hot-mic making fun of him. More recently, the infamous meeting in the Oval Office with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky went off the rails when Vance and Trump perceived the Ukrainian leader talking down to them. French President Macron’s meeting with Donald Trump was seen similarly in Trump-supporting media, even as Macron was praised in the European press for ‘sticking it to the man.’
Thus far, only three European leaders have clearly figured out how to best achieve their nation’s interests during a Trump presidency: Victor Orban, Giorgia Meloni, and Keir Starmer. Orban and Meloni are unsurprising, given their ideological alignment with the new right in America, especially their emphasis on “western civilization” and immigration restrictions. Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki, also a right-wing populist, might join the ranks of Orban and Meloni at the summit, leaving more centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk at home. Starmer, on the other hand, has been a surprisingly effective advocate for British interests. As the Labour Prime Minister and former human rights lawyer, he may be the only world leader who enjoys being summoned to the Hague. But his good relations with Trump, and recent negotiation of the US-UK bilateral trade deal has shown that Starmer’s approach, the art of the flattery, still works.
At the NATO summit, European leaders have to choose: adopt this approach or opt for confrontation? Little irritates Europeans more than being lectured to by Americans. European leaders can either take the Starmer way – ignore American condescension and aim for concord – or try the Zelensky route, standing up to Trump and risking a spectacular blow up.
What Policy Outcomes Are We Likely to See?
Some NATO summits are boring, others are boring and end with a policy change. In 2022 during the Madrid summit, for example, NATO countries introduced a new force model, and doubled the size of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year’s summit offers a few possibilities for substantive policy change, though there’s unlikely to be anything as dramatic as the 2022 changes in concrete force deployments. At present, the most likely change in force posture would be unilateral: a pull-back of US troops, specifically those from more recent deployments, such as those stationed in Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary under the enhanced NATO forward presence plans. The Trump administration could also eliminate the European Deterrence Initiative. But both seem unlikely. On the European front, there’s a meeting next week in Brussels where defense ministers will discuss boosting weapons stocks – ground based air defense systems specifically. Presumably the policy will be announced at the summit and will aim at reducing over reliance on US defense manufacturers. However, this policy seems to be the European Sky Shield Initiative — a project aimed at building an integrated European air defense system — with new packaging.
More likely are new directives on allied defense spending. In 2006, NATO defense ministers agreed to target future military spending to the threshold of two percent of GDP on defense; this was formally agreed upon in 2014. Over a decade later, twenty-three out of the now thirty-two members spend two percent or more – though the vast majority have only reached that level in the past few years. Increased spending has been a consistent theme of Donald Trump’s approach to the alliance; in 2018, he told a NATO summit in Brussels that four percent was needed. Now, the administration is pushing five percent spending, with US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker saying, “Let me cut to the core of our message. 5%—peace through strength demands nothing less, and it demands it equally from all Allies.” European governments will likely push back, criticizing that just as they have hit the two-percent threshold, this administration moved the goal posts yet again.
However, most are taking Trump seriously. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has endorsed the five percent threshold, albeit while offering some creative accounting suggestions. He has proposed that members might spend three-and-a-half percent of GDP on ‘hard defense,’ with another one-and-a-half percent on related areas like infrastructure and cybersecurity. While infrastructure improvements and cybersecurity are necessary for a coherent European defense, we don’t yet know whether the new Trump administration will accept this interpretation. We also don’t know whether European states actually could meet the five percent (or are willing to make the difficult decisions to do so), creative accounting included. The UK defense review, released last week, committed to spend two-and-a-half percent of GDP on defense by 2027, and eventually three percent, both of which are well-below the benchmarks pushed by the administration.
If the Europeans can actually set three-and-a-half percent as a goal, the administration might be appeased, but it seems like European allies are starting to signal that even the three-and-a-half percent – let alone the five percent – benchmark might be unreachable. At the end of the day, Trump may be eager to take any spending concession from this summit as a ‘win.’ Yet Republican voters are increasingly skeptical of NATO, and whether increased spending will be enough to fully appease the administration – or prevent potential troop drawdowns from the continent – is uncertain.
Is This Summit the Nail in the Coffin for NATO? For Ukraine?
In 2019, French President Macron memorably told reporters that “what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO” because the United States was “turning its back on us.” That was, of course, before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine brought new life and purpose to the organization. The Biden administration dove into leading NATO, embracing the alliance’s renewed sense of mission – and its functionality. Much of the Ukraine aid and military assistance was coordinated via NATO, and Biden even announced “a bridge to NATO for Ukraine” at the 2024 Washington summit. But the return of Donald Trump suggests that the alliance’s longevity is still in question.
So far, the Trump administration clearly prefers to go-it alone, abandoning the NATO-centric strategy that defined Biden’s Ukraine policy. At the last Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in February 2025, Secretary of Defense Hegseth made it clear that the administration is unwilling to establish an unlimited commitment to Ukraine. He told shocked attendees that any “peacekeepers to Ukraine…should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission” and “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome.” Hegseth also emphasized in the same speech that European security should be the responsibility of European states, a worrying development for countries that have spent decades reliant on US assistance. He has declined to attend the next meeting of the contact group.
This summit might see similar statements aimed at pushing European allies to accept burden-shifting rather than burden-sharing. Europeans are already thinking about this issue and trying to find ways to work on their own security and defense outside of NATO, but progress is slow. Often, the difficult decisions – like defense industry consolidation, reinstating conscription, or massively raising spending – have been the necessary steps Europeans have been unwilling to make. States have used EU regulation to bolster their defense industries, and have set up a ‘coalition of the willing’ on Ukraine. But the coalition of the willing has proved somewhat ineffective; European states who pledged peacekeeping forces have needed to walk back some of their potential commitments and have faced issues buying weapons to send to Ukraine. They could make a new proposal at The Hague, announcing a new scheme to support Ukraine, but given that both NATO and the EU operate via consensus, prospects are slim.
Alliance Vibes
Though it may sound ridiculous, the most notable thing to look for at this summit will be tone. How Trump engages, what he or his cabinet secretaries say, and how Europeans respond are likely to be the most important parts of the 2025 NATO summit rather than significant policy deliverables. The atmosphere surrounding the summit might even shift over time (as Vice President Vance’s speech undoubtedly shifted the mood of the Munich Security Conference). But by the end of the summit, it will be clear whether the gathering was more like a funeral or merely a contentious family gathering. Until then, it’s anyone’s guess.
