President Trump is on his way to the NATO summit, emerging from the White House early Tuesday enraged over the continued fighting between Israel and Iran in the wake of parameters of a ceasefire he announced a day before.<\/p>\n
What comes next in the nearly two-week conflict will likely dominate a host of bilateral meetings and informal pull-asides with world leaders Trump has lined up at the two-day summit in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n
NATO\u2019s defense spending levels will also take center stage as world leaders prepare to back a goal of spending 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to increase security.<\/p>\n
That will likely be related to talks involving the Russia-Ukraine war, another major topic at hand, as well as Trump\u2019s tariffs on trading partners. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to watch for.<\/p>\n
Trump is set to arrive in the Netherlands after a whirlwind few days of activity in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
He left Washington, D.C., early Tuesday fuming at both Israel and Iran for continued fighting overnight despite his announcement that the parameters of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.<\/p>\n
He declared that both sides \u201cdon\u2019t know what the f\u2011\u2011\u2011 they\u2019re doing.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI think they both violated it. I don’t think, I’m not sure they did it intentionally. They couldn’t rein people back,\u201d Trump told reporters as he departed the White House. \u201cI don’t like the fact that Israel went out this morning at all, and I’m going to see if I can stop it. So as soon as I get away from you, I’m going to see if I can stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he announced the ceasefire to bring the nearly two-week conflict to an end, the U.S. military struck three Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with missiles targeting an American base in Qatar that resulted in no casualties.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable sequence of events, particularly for Trump, who had faced lingering questions and some criticism from his own base about the prospect of engaging in a foreign conflict despite his \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy pledge.<\/p>\n
The fragile ceasefire and how to approach Iran and its nuclear ambitions moving forward are likely to be a subject of discussion among world leaders at the NATO summit.<\/p>\n
The president pushed the idea to require all NATO members to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense, as opposed to 2 percent, after railing against allies for not paying their fair share.<\/p>\n
The summit in The Hague is seen as a deadline for members to meet the spending threshold as the demands will be confirmed Wednesday. The U.S would also be increasing its spending from 3 percent to 5 percent; and in 2024, 23 out of 32 countries in the alliance had met<\/a> the 2 percent threshold.<\/p>\n Spain, however, is expected to be an outlier after it made a deal with NATO to be excluded from the 5 percent target and instead spend just more than 2 percent of its GDP on defense needs. Spain received the exemption<\/a> from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, after Trump said Friday the country \u201chas to pay what everybody else has to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has also suggested the U.S. may not defend NATO allies who do not contribute enough to defense spending, despite the core pillar of the alliance that an attack on one is an attack on all.<\/p>\n Asked about the United States’s Article 5 obligations while en route to the summit, Trump suggested there were different definitions of what it meant.<\/p>\n \u201cDepends on your definition. There’s numerous definitions of Article 5,\u201d Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. \u201cBut I’m committed to being their friends. You know, I’ve become friends with many of those leaders, and I’m committed to helping them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018If you\u2019re not going to pay, we\u2019re not going to defend.\u2019 I said that seven years ago, and because of that, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars,\u201d the president said in April.<\/p>\n The only time Article 5 of NATO has been invoked was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil. Trump on the campaign trail said he thinks NATO allies treat the U.S. unfairly and that the U.S. takes on a heavier burden than other members.<\/p>\n Trump also shared a message from Rutte<\/a> in which the NATO chief said, “Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”<\/p>\n “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done,” Rutte said in the private message, which Trump shared via a screenshot.<\/p>\n NATO confirmed the back-and-forth, and Rutte said he didn’t mind the sentiment being made public. <\/p>\n “I have absolutely no trouble or problem with that because there\u2019s nothing in it which had to stay secret,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n Rutte stressed in his preview of the summit<\/a> that the alliance has to continue to be consistent with its support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must continue to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to defend today and deter in the future. Our support for Ukraine is unwavering and will persist,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n Ukraine and Russia\u2019s war is a particularly challenging spot for Trump, after he vowed on the 2024 campaign trail to end the ongoing war within 24 hours of taking office but has made little apparent headway. Trump is expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit.<\/p>\n Russia has so far refused U.S. proposals for a 30-day ceasefire<\/a>, and Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while also placing blame on Ukraine for not making a deal to end the fighting. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Russia condemned the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear sites and vowed to support Iran on Monday, telling Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, \u201cfor our part, we are making efforts to assist the Iranian people.\u201d<\/p>\nRussia-Ukraine war<\/h2>\n