Behind closed doors, Trump struck a more measured tone with his fellow leaders, according to two people in the room. He praised Poland, Germany and the Baltics for hiking their defense spending. Although he complained again about some countries spending too little, he did not mention Spain and kept silent on Greenland.
Trump put his own spin on the dynamics. “If you could have seen the respect and the love in the room, and it’s love really for the country, for our country,” he said after the summit. “But they do, they like the job I’m doing. They said, ‘We love, sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that, isn’t that nice?”
But the key to the change in tone from the rest of the alliance was less a desire to please Trump and more a rising self-confidence in their own capabilities.
Europe stands up
While insisting on the importance of a transatlantic bond at the leaders’ meeting, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that higher defense spending was in Europe’s own interest, one of the people cited above said.
“Trump’s speeches … have made us understand that it would be good to also be able to count on ourselves,” said Luxembourg’s Bettel. “We want to give ourselves the means, but if this is just about posturing and bootlicking — no, that’s not why I’m here.”
Ed Arnold, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a former NATO official, said higher allied spending gives the U.S. less leverage.