The incendiary words of Donald Trump last weekend were met with astonishment and discomfort in Brussels, seat of NATO and the institutions of the European Union. All this despite the fact that the community capital knows the braggadocio of those who visited the city on two occasions, in both cases for summits of the Atlantic Alliance that dealt with the tycoon’s obsession for all partners to comply with a 2% of GDP in military spending.
Trump’s fixation remains seven years after the first meeting with his allies. Although some consider his remarks, in which he encouraged Russia to “do whatever the hell it wants” with any country that doesn’t spend enough on defense, to be part of an election campaign, he had never gone that far .
The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, reacted quickly and assured that “any suggestion that the allies will not defend each other undermines the security of all”. A clear allusion to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, that of collective defence, which says that if a country is attacked, the members of the organization must respond. In fact, the first country to invoke it was the United States after the 9/11 attacks.
Reactions from the EU have also not been long in coming. The Community Executive has already advanced that they are prepared “for all possible scenarios” that could happen in the White House. If the head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, described Trump’s words as “stupid ideas”, and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, as “irresponsible”, others prefer to keep their heads down cold
The newly elected president of Finland, the last country to join NATO, Alexander Stubb, insisted that the words were part of “electoral rhetoric in the United States” and said it was time to “keep the moderation and calm and bet on NATO membership”. Also the prime minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas (who has been talked about as a possible candidate to replace Stoltenberg when he leaves office) insisted that the organization is “strong enough to defend each other”.
The vice president of the think tank, Ian Lesser, admitted to this newspaper that “although Trump’s words are worrying and go beyond what is there, they reflect an electoral climate, “polarized” within the United States. “There is a gap between what Trump would like to happen and what can actually happen”, and that apart from this, there is “broad support both in the institutions of the United States and public opinion” about the importance of NATO.
Much more gloomy is the perspective of Gustav Gressel, an analyst at the think tank European Council of Foreign Relations. “It was not a good day for NATO, and he is still not president. Despite the fact that Congress prevented the United States from leaving NATO, it is the president who has the executive powers to react in the event of the activation of Article 5”, he admits to La . Gressel fears that a Trump victory could favor the Kremlin, which would lead Putin to “attack any NATO country”. “That’s why this threat is existential for us”, he adds.
According to the organization’s latest report, at the moment only eight of the 31 countries that make up the Alliance allocate at least 2% of their GDP to defence. Ten years ago the goal was for all countries to comply, but despite the fact that the war in Ukraine changed completely, and more states – including Germany and Spain – committed to increasing their budget, they are still far from complying with this forecast.
The next meeting of NATO’s heads of state and government will take place at the beginning of July in Washington, where they are celebrating the 75th anniversary of its foundation, and with the threat of Russia as one of the main points. Washington is also expected to put more pressure on its allies to all meet the 2% target. Not only for the ghost of Donald Trump, but also for the Kremlin.
