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US president meets NATO chief, expresses disappointment over member states failing to back war on Iran.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n By <\/span>AJ Staff, AFP and Reuters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Published On 9 Apr 2026<\/span>9 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n United States President Donald Trump has lashed out at NATO over its reluctance to join Washington\u2019s war on Iran, and appeared to revive threats over Greenland, following a meeting with the alliance\u2019s secretary-general.<\/p>\n Writing on his TruthSocial platform on Wednesday, Trump said in capitalised letters that \u201cNATO wasn\u2019t there when we needed them, and they won\u2019t be there if we need them again\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The remarks came after a two hour meeting with NATO\u2019s Mark Rutte at the White House, a day after the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire.<\/p>\n Ahead of the meeting, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that member states had \u201cturned their backs on the American people\u201d, who fund their nations\u2019 defence. She said Trump would have a \u201cvery frank and candid conversation\u201d with the NATO chief and quoted the US president as saying: \u201cThey were tested, and they failed.\u201d<\/p>\n The rhetoric has raised seats in the West that Trump could move to withdraw the US from the transatlantic alliance, which he has repeatedly called a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d. Several NATO members refused to open their airspace to US military aircraft or send naval forces to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy route that Iran has effectively closed.<\/p>\n Trump \u2013 following his meeting with Rutte \u2013 also appeared to revive his threat to seize Greenland from NATO member Denmark \u2013 a move had roiled the alliance before he launched his war on Iran<\/p>\n \u201cRemember Greenland, that big, poorly run, piece of ice!!!\u201d, he wrote.<\/p>\n Rutte, known in Europe as the \u201cTrump whisperer\u201d for his skill in maintaining a productive relationship with the US president, told the CNN broadcaster that Trump was \u201cclearly disappointed with many NATO allies\u201d.<\/p>\n Rutte said he had \u201cvery frank\u201d and \u201cvery open\u201d discussions with Trump during the meeting, and that while he understood the US president\u2019s frustrations, he had pushed back against some of the broader criticism.<\/p>\n \u201cI was also able to point to the fact that the large majority of European nations have been helpful, with basing, with logistics, with overflights, with making sure that they live up to the commitments,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the US did with Iran, they could do because so many European countries lived up to those commitments. Not all of them, and I totally understand his disappointment about that, but it is, therefore, a nuanced picture,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Rutte also rejected the notion that NATO members considered the war on Iran \u201cillegal\u201d, arguing that there was widespread support in Europe for degrading Iran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. He also said that prolonged diplomacy risked a \u201cNorth Korean moment\u201d \u2013 where talks drag on until a country acquires nuclear capacity and it becomes too late to act.<\/p>\n The NATO chief declined to answer directly when asked multiple times if Trump had said he would leave the alliance.<\/p>\n NATO, which includes European countries, the US and Canada, was formed in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union and has been the cornerstone of the West\u2019s security ever since.<\/p>\n The alliance has only activated its mutual defence clause on one occasion, following the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in the US.<\/p>\n It was not clear what role Trump had expected it to play in the \u2060Middle East.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, reported that Trump was looking at punishing some NATO members he believed were unhelpful during the conflict by moving US troops out of their countries.<\/p>\n The plan, reported by the Wall Street Journal, would fall short of Trump\u2019s hinted threats to pull the US out of NATO entirely \u2013 a move for which he would need the approval of the US Congress.<\/p>\n Rutte did not answer directly when asked about that report.<\/p>\n \u201cThe large majority, including France, of European nations, has been doing what they committed before they will do in a case like this,\u201d he said instead.<\/p>\n \u201cSo Europe, as a platform of power projection for the United States, was in full play over the last six weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n US president meets NATO chief, expresses disappointment over member states failing to back war on Iran. By AJ Staff, AFP and Reuters Published On 9 Apr 20269 Apr 2026 United States President Donald Trump has lashed out at NATO over its reluctance to join Washington\u2019s war on Iran, and appeared to revive threats over Greenland, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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