Dutch PM: NATO Summit outcome a "great achievement"; Trump meets with Schoof, Wilders

Caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof said the outcome of the NATO Summit this week was a "great achievement" after the main meetings drew to a close in The Hague on Wednesday. The Dutch political leader gave his remarks after the 32 NATO members agreed to increase defense spending from two percent of GDP to five percent, while naming Russia as a threat to "Euro-Atlantic security," pledging continued support for Ukraine, and reaffirming the importance of standing together when any one NATO member is attacked.

Increased spending has long been pushed by the United States, including President Donald Trump's current and previous administrations. The NATO allies agreed to spend a minimum of 3.5 percent of GDP on "core defense requirements" and NATO Capability Targets. Another 1.5 percent of GDP is to be spent annually on various other projects, including cybersecurity, infrastructure protection, civil readiness, and innovation.

This was critical to moving in the right direction, Schoof said. "Today NATO took historic decisions that will strengthen the alliance and our collective defence," he wrote on social media. He praised the relationship with the United States, and its participation at the Summit. "Let’s continue working together to make our countries safer, stronger and more prosperous."

NATO's statement at the end of the Summit was just five paragraphs in length. Sources told the Financial Times that this was part of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's plan to keep meetings short and clear with firm goals to keep Trump's attention during the event. The newspaper noted that the previous post-Summit statement was 44 paragraphs by comparison, and a 90-paragraph statement was released a year earlier. Rutte has received criticism for his overly-glowing remarks to Trump, particularly in the days leading up to the Summit.

"The United States accounts for two-thirds of all NATO defense spending," Trump said. "Since I began pushing for additional commitments in 2017, believe it or not, our allies have increased spending by 700 billion dollars, he continued. Trump also praised Rutte, who previously led the Netherlands, as well as Schoof, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima. "Once again, I want to thank all of the people in the Netherlands. Incredible people. It's a great place."

Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right political party PVV, showered Trump with praise after the event, but for different reasons. "Thank you so much Mr President ... for the excellent meeting we just had and our discussion about the need for tougher immigration laws!" wrote the leader of the largest political party in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch Parliament.

However, Trump stated during a press conference later that he had no idea who Wilders was when they met. Trump said the Dutch government organized the meeting with Wilders as the leader of the largest opposition party. Wilders just pulled the PVV out of the coalition government when he made demands about immigration and asylum policy that went beyond the coalition agreement that took almost eight months to negotiate after the 2023 election.

"I was asked to meet with the opposition leader by the people that are running [the country]. I think they have some deal where if you have a meeting you're supposed to meet with an opposition leader. I said, 'That's strange. We don't have that,'" Trump stated. "I didn't know him. He seemed like a very nice guy," Trump said of Wilders. The PVV leader claimed the opposite was the case, and that the U.S. government arranged the brief meeting.

One reporter asked Trump to comment on the PVV leaders' anti-Islam rhetoric. "I'm not upset about it, it's just his view. He's unhappy with the way things are going in this country, and various other countries," Trump said. Wilders also met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Tuesday.

Trump spent much of his press availability on Wednesday defending American strikes on Iran last week. He also derided CNN and The New York Times for reporting on an early assessment from the U.S. Department of Defense saying the bombing raids may have only set the country's nuclear weapons development back by a few months.

Trump did this while next to Rutte, then Schoof, and later with his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio. He claimed the news outlets' reporting was a direct insult to the American pilots who flew bombing raids over Iran.