At a Thursday meeting of NATO’s defense ministers, “I felt a shift in mindset where the Europeans were not only saying, ‘Hey, we are going to spend much more,’” Rutte said. “The shift in mindset is Europeans saying, ‘We need to take more the lead in NATO,’ … and this is exactly what the United States wanted.”
That “makes it easier for the United States to stay anchored in NATO,” Rutte added.
The remarks come one day after an unusually cordial intervention from Deputy Pentagon chief Elbridge Colby at Thursday’s meeting of alliance ministers in Brussels — which some Europeans took as a sign the U.S. wanted to put the Greenland episode to bed.
Colby called for a new “NATO 3.0,” where Europeans pay more for their own defense and slim NATO’s activities down to its core task of defending alliance territory — an idea Rutte backed on Friday.
His comments also reflect a sense of relief in Munich from many Europeans hoping that the worst of last month’s transatlantic tensions have eased — at least for the time being.
However, Rutte has recently come under fire from some allies for going too far in his defense of Trump and the U.S.