MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The NATO summit wraps up today with most members promising to dramatically increase their defense spending. President Trump attended. He gave a long and wide-ranging press conference with the media afterwards. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley was at The Hague at the NATO summit, and we go to her now for her thoughts on this. Eleanor, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: You're welcome, Michel.
MARTIN: So first of all, what have the NATO allies decided? What have they done?
BEARDSLEY: Well, in a very short communique, they pledged to increase their defense spending from 2% of gross domestic product to 5%. And this is a huge step. And they repeated their commitment to Article 5, which is the underlying basis for NATO. It means all allies promise to protect the one that is attacked. There were concerns President Trump was not committed to that, but he agreed. He said today he was, and he agreed to the communique, which means he's bound by it. Overall, it ended on a good vibe, I would say, with no open divisions, lots of the 32 national leaders speaking of solidarity and unity behind the NATO allies.
MARTIN: And what did President Trump say?
BEARDSLEY: Oh, Michel, what did he not say? He had this long press conference that went on for over an hour, and - let's see, he kind of glossed over the war in Ukraine, saying it was a lot more complicated than people realized to end. And that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a lot more difficult than he thought. He had a lot of great statements of love and bon ami for the Netherlands and his NATO allies. And he took credit for the NATO members increasing their defense budgets. But he mostly talked about the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, how devastating and effective they had been. And he complained bitterly about what he called fake news media trying to say that the nuclear, you know, weapons were not destroyed or the - you know, the process wasn't destroyed. And he came back to this time and again. He seemed angry. He called it an attack against the brave pilots who flew the missions. Let's listen to an excerpt.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When I saw them starting to question the caliber of the attack, was it bad. Well, it was really bad. It was devastating. They were obliterated. In fact, you can't get into the tunnels. They just put that over. That just came out. They can't - there's nothing - there's no way you can even get down. The whole thing has collapsed and a disaster.
MARTIN: Well, yes, he was very much preoccupied with this, and as you noted, tried to sort of pivot the skepticism about whether the nuclear program was destroyed to a criticism of the pilots. So - but speaking of disasters, there were fears in advance of the summit that this one might be one. So looking back on it, was it?
BEARDSLEY: It was a success. I mean, many of the alliance members have hailed Trump for getting NATO to increase spending. And, of course, the main reason for that is Russia's attack on Ukraine, but they say the pressure he put played a huge role. The strike on Iran, of course, changed the focus a little bit. You know, Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump had made Europe and Canada realize they weren't paying their fair share and now they would. And he was very complimentary of Trump about these, you know, NATO and the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, which he called extraordinary. Let's listen to Rutte.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARK RUTTE: I think it is a man of strength but also a man of peace. You've seen that basically now with Iran - the man of strength, being able to command his B-2 bombers to go into Iran to take out the nuclear capability, but also the man of peace, who is then immediately following up with making sure that Israel and Iran will commit to a ceasefire.
BEARDSLEY: So, you know, Trump says he's going home a different person. He said he saw leaders who love their countries - he's talking about the Europeans. And he says now he understands better how important, you know, it is for NATO to be strong.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reporting on the NATO summit at The Hague in the Netherlands. Eleanor, thank you.
BEARDSLEY: Thank you, Michel.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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