THE HAGUE — Aboard Air Force One over the Atlantic on Tuesday, President Trump turned his attention for a brief moment from the ceasefire he had brokered between Israel and Iran to one that has proven far more elusive.
“I’d like to see a deal with Russia,” Trump told reporters before arriving in the Netherlands for a NATO summit and referencing his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. “Vladimir called me up. He said, ‘Can I help you with Iran?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t need help with Iran. I need help with you.’”
“I hope we’re going to be getting a deal done with Russia,” Trump added. “It’s a shame.”
It was a rare expression of frustration from Trump with Putin at a critical time in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and as Ukrainian leaders and their allies in Europe desperately seek assurances from Trump that U.S. assistance for Kyiv will continue.
The president arrived at the summit on Tuesday evening in The Hague, where he is expected to meet with leaders from across Europe, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Now we’re going to NATO — we’ll get a new set of problems,” Trump said of the meetings. “We’ll solve a new set of problems.”
The European bloc hopes to leverage Trump’s jubilation over the outcome of Israel’s war with Iran — which saw its nuclear program bombed and much of its military leadership and air defenses eliminated — into a diplomatic success for itself, European officials told The Times. After ordering U.S. precision strikes against three of Iran’s main nuclear facilities over the weekend to assist the Israeli campaign, Trump announced a ceasefire in the conflict on Monday that has tentatively held.
“The message will be that deterrence works,” one European official said. The hope, the official added, is that Trump will feel emboldened to take a more aggressive stance toward Russia after succeeding in his strategic gamble in the Middle East.
Whether the U.S. bombing raid worked, however, remains an open question. An initial assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which reviewed imagery of the damage at the nuclear sites, concluded that the U.S. attack likely failed to destroy Iran’s core nuclear capabilities, only setting its program back by a few months, according a report by CNN confirmed to The Times by an official familiar with the matter.
In The Hague, discussions among NATO and European officials have focused on Russia’s timetable for reconstituting its land army, with the most aggressive analyses estimating that Moscow could be in a position to launch another full-scale attempt to take over Ukraine — or a NATO member state — by 2027.
In a text message sent to Trump, screenshots of which he posted to social media, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte fawned over the president’s “decisive action” to bomb Iran, a decision he called “truly extraordinary.”
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” Rutte wrote. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
Rutte was referencing a new commitment by members of the alliance to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense, a significant increase that has been a priority for Trump since his first term in office.
The matter is not fully settled, with Spain resisting the new spending commitment. “There’s a problem with Spain, “ Trump told reporters on the plane, “which is very unfair to the rest of the people.”
But the new funding — “BIG” money, as Rutte put it — could help appease a president who has repeatedly expressed skepticism of the NATO alliance.
As he spoke with reporters, Trump questioned whether Article 5 of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all, in fact requires the United States to come to the defense of its allies.
“There are numerous definitions of Article 5, [but] I’m committed to being their friends,” he added. “I’ve become friends with many of those leaders, and I’m committed to helping them.”
Trump has failed thus far to persuade Putin to agree to a ceasefire against Ukraine despite applying pressure to both sides — particularly against Kyiv, which Trump has incorrectly blamed for starting the war.
In the Dnipro region of Ukraine on Tuesday, 160 people were injured and 11 were killed in a ballistic missile strike by Moscow, Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia cannot produce ballistic missiles without components from other countries,” Zelensky said. “Russia cannot manufacture hundreds of other types of weapons without the parts, equipment and expertise that this deranged regime in Moscow does not possess on its own. That is why it is so important to minimize the schemes that connect Russia with its accomplices. There must also be a significant strengthening of sanctions against Russia.”
Assuming a similar strategy to the Europeans, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in an interview on Sunday that Congress should act to enable Trump with leverage against Putin in upcoming negotiations.
“How does this affect Russia?” Graham responded on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked about the war with Iran. “I’ve got 84 co-sponsors for a Russian sanctions bill that is an economic bunker-buster against China, India and Russia for Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.”
“I think that bill’s going to pass,” he added. “We’re going to give the president a waiver. It will be a tool in Trump’s toolbox to bring Putin to the table.”
