The Hague – On board the Air Force One above the Atlantic on Tuesday, President Trump turned his attention for a brief moment of the ceasefire that he had negotiated between Israel and Iran to a which turned out to be much more elusive.
“I would like to see an agreement with Russia,” Trump told journalists before arriving in the Netherlands for a NATO summit and referring to his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the war in Ukraine. “Vladimir called me. He said, “Can I help you with Iran? I said, “No, I don’t need help with Iran.
“I hope we are going to agree with Russia,” added Trump. “It’s a shame.”
It was a rare expression of Trump’s frustration with Putin at a critical moment in the Moscow War against Ukraine, and as Ukrainian leaders and their allies in Europe are desperately requiring Trump insurance that assistance in the United States for kyiv will continue.
The president arrived at the summit Tuesday evening in The Hague, where he should meet leaders from all over Europe, notably the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Now we are going to NATO – we will have a new set of problems,” said Trump about meetings. “We are going to solve a new set of problems.”
The European block hopes to take advantage of Trump’s jubilation on the outcome of the War of Israel with Iran – which saw its bombed nuclear program and a large part of its military leaders and the air defenses eliminated – in diplomatic success for itself, European officials in Times said. After commanding precision strikes, we against three of the main nuclear installations of Iran during the weekend to help the Israeli campaign, Trump announced on Monday a cease-fire in the conflict that temporarily held.
“The message will be that deterrence works,” said a European official. Hope, added the official, is that Trump will feel embarrassing to take a more aggressive position towards Russia after successfully successfully by the Middle East.
However, if the American bombing raid has worked, however, remains an open question. An initial assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which examined the imagery of damage to nuclear sites, concluded that the American attack probably did not destroy the main nuclear capacities of Iran, fixing its program only a few months, according to a CNN report, confirmed to Times by a familiar official with the question.
In The Hague, discussions between NATO and European officials focused on the calendar of Russia to reconstruct its terrestrial army, the most aggressive analyzes believing that Moscow could be able to launch another large -scale attempt to take control of Ukraine – or a member state of NATO – by 2027.
In an SMS sent to Trump, the screenshots he posted on social networks, NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, embarrassed the president’s “decisive action” to bomb Iran, a decision he described as “really extraordinary”.
“Donald, you led us to a really important time, really important for America and Europe, and the world,” wrote Rutte. “You will realize something that no American president for decades could be done.”
Rutte referred to a new commitment from the members of the Alliance to spend 5% of their gross domestic product in defense, a significant increase which was a priority for Trump since his first mandate.
The case is not entirely settled, Spain resistant to the new commitment of spending. “There is a problem with Spain,” Trump told journalists on the plane, “which is very unfair for the rest of the people.”
But the new funding – “big” money, as Rutte said – could help appease a president who has repeatedly expressed the skepticism of the NATO alliance.
As he addressed journalists, Trump wondered if article 5 of the NATO Charter, which indicates that an attack on a member is an attack on all, in fact, the United States comes to the defense of his allies.
“There are many definitions of article 5, [but] I am determined to be their friends, “he added.” I became a friend with many of these leaders, and I undertook to help them. “”
Trump has so far failed to persuade Putin to accept a ceasefire against Ukraine despite pressure on both sides-especially against kyiv, that Trump has blamed the war.
In the Dnipro region in Ukraine on Tuesday, 160 people were injured and 11 were killed in a shot of ballistic missiles in Moscow, Zelensky wrote on social networks.
“Russia cannot produce ballistic missiles without components of other countries,” said Zelensky. “Russia cannot make hundreds of other types of weapons without the parts, equipment and expertise that this disturbed diet in Moscow does not have alone. This is why it is so important to minimize the diets that connect Russia to its accomplices. There must also be a significant strengthening of sanctions against Russia. ”
Assuming a strategy similar to Europeans, Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) said in an interview on Sunday that Congress should act to allow Trump to lever against Putin in upcoming negotiations.
“How does that affect Russia?” Graham responded to NBC’s “Meet The Press”, asked about the war with Iran. “I have 84 co-sponsors for a Russian sanctions bill which is an economic bunker against China, India and Russia for the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia.”
“I think Bill will pass,” he added. “We are going to give the president a derogation. It will be a tool in Trump’s toolbox to bring Putin to the table.”
