Foreign pool note #2: Trump-Rutte Oval

Dear colleagues,

Secretary General Mark Rutte spoke for several minutes in the Oval Office after President Trump called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine in 50 days or the US would implement "secondary tariffs" at 100 percent. He also announced that the US will send weapons to Nato.

Mr Rutte later said weapons systems would be delivered to Ukraine through Nato, and Europe would be paying for them. He said effort would be made to find out what Ukrainians need in the field. He said he had met with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the Pentagon in the morning where they discussed possible packages for Ukraine. He said it was made “absolutely clear” that the US will keep the stockpiles necessary to defend itself.

He said it means that Ukraine can soon get its hands on “really massive numbers of military equipment, both for air defense, but also missiles, ammunition.”

“This is really big, this is really big,” Mr Rutte said adding that Mr Trump had called him on Thursday saying he had reached a decision.

“And the decision is that you want Ukraine what it needs to have, to maintain, to be able to defend itself against Russia, but you do want Europeans to pay for it, which is totally logical,” he said.

He said the approach builds on the “tremendous success of the NATO Summit,” which included the 5% GDP pledge as well as the decision to support Ukraine and increase Europe’s defense industrial production.

“That was Europe stepping up. This is again, Europeans stepping up,” he said.

He said Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Canada had all said they want to be involved, though this was “only the first wave” and there would be more.

“So if I was Vladimir Putin today, and are you speaking about what you were planning to do in 50 days, and this announcement, I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously than I was doing at the moment, if I was Vladimir Putin. But when I'm Ukraine, I think this is really great news for them,” he said.

Additional info/background on Mark Rutte:

Mark Rutte became head of Nato on October 1, 2024, succeeding Jens Stoltenberg. He previously served as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands for 14 years. He has known Mr Trump for many years, and their relationship seems to have evolved over the years.

During Mr Trump’s first term, Mr Rutte who was then Dutch Prime Minister was one of the few European leaders who challenged Mr Trump publicly, particularly on NATO burden-sharing and trade issues.

But their relationship appears to have notably improved, coming on display during the Nato summit in the Hague last month, when Mr Trump called Mr Rutte a “very strong leader and a good man,” and Mr Rutte later called the US President a “man of strength and peace”.

He even likened him to a global affairs “daddy”, in a perhaps playful comment.