The Biden administration got its way when the outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte secured the support of all 32 NATO allies for the alliance’s top political post.
Although NATO’s secretary general is often described as more of a secretary than a general, former NATO officials and US diplomats say the alliance may need Rutte to be battle-ready if Donald Trump wins back the presidency in November.
The question looming at next month’s NATO leaders’ summit – to be held in Washington from July 9 to 11 – is whether Rutte will be up to the task.
Rutte, whose center-right politics in Europe would put him to the left of many mainstream Democrats, is known for his pragmatism, his skill at coalition building and his staunch transatlantic views. But his calm, level-headed approach may make him better suited to working with President Joe Biden than Trump, who at one point threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance and who has repeatedly berated European allies for their meager defense spending. .
“Having an excellent coalition builder – and that’s what NATO is all about, getting consensus for an organization – is good for NATO,” said Ivo Daalder, who served as US ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration. served. “But no one will be able to lead an alliance that will undoubtedly be disrupted by a president who has no interest in being governed himself or leading an alliance.”
Trump had only a few face-to-face meetings with Rutte during his presidency, and several of his former diplomats in Europe said they could not discuss the relationship between the two men. But when the two leaders met, Rutte’s no-nonsense approach to Trump made headlines.
During a bilateral meeting at the White House in July 2018, Trump tried to tell reporters that the outcome would be “positive” even if the US and EU could not agree on a trade deal. Rutte quickly cut Trump off.
“No,” Rutte interjected, laughing and with his trademark smile. “It’s not positive. We have to work something out.”
Gordon Sondland, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, told POLITICO that Rutte “has had a history of pushing back when he thinks Trump is wrong, and he does it to his face.”
“I think that’s very refreshing for Trump,” he added.
But Sondland’s suggestion that Trump would appreciate Rutte’s candor and bluntness is at odds with Trump’s even greater appreciation for loyalty. (Trump recalled Sondland as EU ambassador following his testimony in the former president’s first impeachment inquiry.)
The Trump campaign has so far revealed little about how he would approach NATO under Rutte, saying only that Trump will “restore peace and rebuild American strength and deterrence on the world stage.”
Outgoing Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg attempted to manage his own relationship with Trump through a policy of appeasement, including appearing on Fox News to credit Trump for helping increase member states’ defense spending.
“I think the relationship between Trump and NATO, including the Secretary General, will be much worse in the second term than in the first – and it was terrible in the first, even though Stoltenberg spent all that time finding a way around Trump has to play nice with NATO,” Daalder said.
Fabrice Pothier, former policy chief to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Stoltenberg managed to convince Trump to consider NATO as his business and helped grow its revenues. But Pothier warned that the strategy may no longer work.
“I’m just skeptical that Trump-proofing NATO and Trump-proofing the transatlantic relationship will be the solution,” Pothier said. “Trump, and some of the people around him, will not be fooled a second time.”
Kay Bailey Hutchison, who served as ambassador to NATO under Trump, said the former president would listen to his secretaries of state and defense and that his relationship with the alliance could be determined by who he appoints to those positions.
Daalder said it is possible that Trump will appoint a greater number of NATO skeptics to top administrative posts if he wins in November – unlike his first term, when Trump selected more “traditional pro-alliance people” for senior defense and national positions. safety features.
“If Ric Grenell is Secretary of State or, God forbid, Jared Kushner – they don’t care, they don’t understand and they don’t want to understand NATO,” Daalder added.
Even Stoltenberg needed a reality check on Tuesday during a meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
During the meeting, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) interrupted Stoltenberg when he claimed that all 32 NATO members – including the US – support Kyiv’s entry into the alliance.
“I expressed the reality that a large number of Americans, including myself, believe that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would be a serious mistake,” Cruz told POLITICO. “And I noted the obvious, which is that we have a presidential election in about five months.
“If Donald Trump is re-elected president, I think it is extremely unlikely that President Trump would support Ukraine as a member of NATO,” Cruz added.
Regardless of Trump’s transatlantic policy, longtime NATO observers do not expect Rutte to adopt his predecessor’s conciliatory approach. If Trump wins, Daalder expects that Rutte will focus on uniting Europeans in NATO.
Rutte has already shown signals that he may have to make more compromises than he would like to keep the alliance united. During a Monday meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Rutte promised to excuse Hungary from participating in NATO efforts to help Ukraine in exchange for Budapest’s support for his candidacy as secretary general.
“I think once you become secretary general, you have to become a little more flexible,” Pothier said. “You have to be willing to compromise more because you represent 32 allies, so you have to be even more of a coalition builder.”
But Daalder indicated that Rutte’s flexibility may also have its limits, especially when it comes to Trump.
“Rutte will do what is best for the alliance,” Daalder said. “That may not be in any way an attempt to get closer to the president of the United States, who is not interested in being closer to NATO.”
Regardless of the interpersonal squabbles, the reality is that the United States remains one of the largest contributors to the alliance’s budget – a country that Pothier said the alliance simply “cannot operate without.”
“NATO is nothing without the United States,” Pothier said. ‘Anyone who tells you that – the opposite – is fooling themselves.’
