Trump makes time for palace pomp but skips key meetings at Nato summit

Yahoo

24-06-2025

Donald Trump will prioritise pageantry over diplomacy at the Nato summit, arriving in the Hague in time for an opulent dinner with the King and Queen while eschewing key meetings.
Mr Trump will arrive in the Hague, Netherlands, on Tuesday evening just in time for the Royal dinner, but will in turn skip a string of Nato meetings earlier in the day.
The flying 24-hour visit, which was originally scheduled to be twice as long, is a reminder of just how much the world's most powerful man chafes at the business of international summitry but never misses an opportunity to revel in pomp and ceremony.
Last week he left the G7 summit in Canada half way through, insisting he had to return to Washington to deal with the escalating crisis in the Middle East.
However, insiders pointed out that he announced he was leaving after sitting through a session on wildfires, exactly the sort of scheduling that he hates.
'He thinks these things are a total waste of time,' said a source who was at the G7 last week.
Nato officials need no reminder.
He left his last Nato summit abruptly when Justin Trudeau, the then Canadian prime minister, was caught on camera joking about Mr Trump's penchant for turning any event into a press conference.
That was six years ago just outside Watford.
This time there is more pomp and glamour in a schedule that has been carefully tailored to keep him happy. There was even talk of slotting in a round of golf on Tuesday, although the abbreviated plan means that has been jettisoned.
Instead he arrives in time to dine at the Huis ten Bosch, one of three official residences of the Dutch royal family.
He leaves the next afternoon after a press conference.
The main theme of the summit will be member states' commitment to spend five percent of gross domestic product on defence – one of Mr Trump's hobby horses and a chance for him to claim a huge win that has eluded previous American presidents.
The usual three sessions have been reduced to one three-hour meeting.
And officials have shrunk the joint communiqué, to be released at the end of the summit, to just one page, focused almost entirely on the member states' pledge to raise defence spending to five percent of gross domestic product.
The short schedule meant it made sense of Mr Trump to cut down his visit from two nights to one, said Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary.
'More action, less talk,' she told The Telegraph.
She added that he was also going to be spending the night at a royal palace, 'which he is very excited about.'
It means he will get to enjoy the ceremony of the summit without having to endure the nitty gritty of negotiations or the platitudes of diplomacy.
However, plans to keep contentious issues off the agenda – such as Ukraine's request for membership – have faltered.
Mr Trump will arrive fresh from ordering strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and retaliatory strikes on US bases in the Middle East.
He may face awkward questions from allies about the legality of the move and even Sir Keir Starmer, who has a good relationship with the US president, and his team have sidestepped questions about the justification for striking Iranian territory.
Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, has kept up a positive tone during the run up.
And on Monday he said he was not planning to raise Iran during the meetings,
'It is deviating from the core issue at hand,' he told reporters. 'And that doesn't mean that individual allies will not discuss this here.'
A senior US official painted a picture of a president keen to get down to the business of increasing defence spending and getting allies to sign up to a five percent spending pledge from member states.
'This effort builds on the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending increases already achieved across the alliance since 2017 thanks to president Trump's diplomacy in his first term,' said the official.
'The president will urge allies to revitalise their industrial capacities in order to create Western supply chains capable of producing the critical minerals, infrastructure, weapons and other products necessary for the security of America and her allies.'
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.