Iran<\/a>. The president then returned to issues and themes that have irritated him during a year in which he started a war with Iran that led to a hike in oil prices, a loss of control in Hormuz and a failure to resolve the nuclear issue.<\/p>\nTrump said he was \u201cvery upset with Nato\u201d and complained that alliance members \u201cdidn\u2019t want to help us with the number one state sponsor of terror, that\u2019s Iran\u201d, a reference a refusal by European countries apart from the UK to allow the US to carry out bombing missions from Europe\u2019s airbases.<\/p>\n
There was a specific jibe aimed at the UK, which did not initially allow the US to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire for bombing missions in Iran before the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, changed his mind and allowed limited attacks on Iranian missile sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United Kingdom wouldn\u2019t let us use the island for two weeks, so we had to fly back,\u201d Trump said, reiterating complaints he made against Starmer and Britain in the spring as the Iran war continued without the regime in Tehran collapsing.<\/p>\n
The 15-minute introduction next to Rutte became a litany of complaint. \u201cGreenland is a big problem for us,\u201d Trump said as he renewed his claim on the self-governing Arctic territory \u201cvery important for the United States, but it\u2019s not important for Denmark\u201d.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said as she arrived that Denmark would defend \u201cevery inch\u201d of its own territory and emphasised that Greenland was \u201cof course not for sale\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mark Rutte (centre left, pointing), secretary general of Nato, US president Donald Trump (centre) and UK PM Keir Starmer (centre right) with other delegates at the Nato summit. Photograph: Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
There was a familiar comments about Nato defence spending from Trump, despite last year\u2019s agreement by all members, with the exception of Spain, to lift national defence budgets to 3.5% of gross domestic product by 2035 \u2013 and so bring spending by Europe and Canada in line with the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very upset with Nato, that we pay far, far too much,\u201d he said. \u201cBillions and billions of dollars, too much, because it\u2019s unfair, because we\u2019re protecting them, so we protect them, but they\u2019re not there for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresh ire was reserved for Madrid given its decision to reject the 3.5% target. \u201cSpain doesn\u2019t agree to anything, and you shouldn\u2019t carry them,\u201d Trump told Rutte. \u201cI don\u2019t want to do any trade with them, alright?\u201d the president said, turning to Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, who \u200creplied: \u201cYes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, through a mixture of flattery and occasional determined interruption, Rutte appeared to have blown Trump\u2019s ire out \u2013 only for the US president to reignite when a journalist asked him if the Iran ceasefire was over.<\/p>\n
The secretary general, a former Dutch prime minister, said there had been only a few \u201cisolated cases\u201d of European Nato allies not allowing US air force flights relating to the Iran war and that on Greenland he had made a deal with Trump at the Davos summit that would see Nato jets patrolling over the Arctic.<\/p>\n
Rutte flattered Trump by saying he had persuaded allies to increase defence spending to US levels by 2035, adding that this had eluded a succession of US presidents. \u201cYou did what [president Dwight] Eisenhower tried to do,\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s your win\u201d. Trump, interrupting, responded \u201cThat\u2019s why I like him\u201d before the Iran question followed.<\/p>\n
Spanish government sources said they were greeting the US president\u2019s latest broadside calmly. \u201cOur country maintains an excellent social, cultural and economic relationship with the US, and we have no intention of changing that,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Nato leaders have worked hard to try to Trump-proof the Ankara summit by agreeing a short draft communique in advance. It is expected to reiterate the alliance\u2019s commitment to mutual self-defence if it is signed off by the leaders.<\/p>\n
However, a report from Bloomberg suggested Nato might not hold a summit in 2027. The hope would be to avoid a repeat of the outburst that has dominated this year\u2019s summit, which was supposed to showcase more than $50bn (\u00a337.5bn) in joint arms procurements, designed to show Nato members were bolstering defence spending to deter Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Sam Jones in Madrid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has declared that the ceasefire with Iran is over as he arrived at the Nato summit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-750431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}