Donald Trump arrived late to the dinner with King Williem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. He was the last of the dozens of heads of state invited to the Paleis Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, the straight-backed footmen in braided gold tailcoats swaying in place by the time he climbed out of his armored limousine. But the hosts were eager to accommodate the U.S. President. The royal couple greeted him warmly. Trump sat at the head table with the king, then spent the night at the palace receiving, he said, “The royal treatment.”
The President swept into this Dutch seaside city on June 24 riding a wave of momentum on the global stage. He was there to attend the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and to celebrate having forced European allies to hike their defense spending in the next decade, from a target of 2% of GDP to 5%. Trump had managed, through a combination of threats and shaming, to achieve progress on a goal sought by U.S. Presidents since the height of the Cold War. “Without President Trump, this would not have happened,” said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, sitting opposite the obviously pleased American leader.
The trip was also a chance for Trump to surf other apparent international wins. His chaotic global trade war, derided everywhere in his first few months, was up for reconsideration with some experts, who have projected less of a hit to the U.S. economy than originally expected. One prominent private-equity economist even asked, “Has Trump outsmarted everyone on tariffs?” A few days before he rolled up to the royal dinner, Trump had bombed his way to a tenuous cease-fire between Iran and Israel, halting 12 days of war and dealing a setback to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
In the first six months of his second term, Trump has smashed orthodoxies abroad as aggressively as he has at home. Some have been surprised to find him making progress on problems that have resisted the efforts of American presidents for decades. “His disruptive style opens new windows of opportunity,” Benedikt Franke, who heads the pro-Atlanticist Munich Security Conference (MSC), said on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Kamala Harris’ former national security advisor, Philip Gordon, wrote recently in the Financial Times that some Democrats “grudgingly envy” Trump’s “willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and political obstacles in pursuit of foreign policy goals.”
Read More: Exclusive: Inside Trump's First 100 Days.
But during Trump’s brief visit to The Hague, events showed the risks of those disruptive opportunities. An early after-action report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, parts of which were leaked to CNN, the New York Times and others, described the impact of the Iran raid in much more modest terms than Trump had claimed, which in turn raised the possibility of Tehran sprinting for nuclear weapons with renewed determination. The DIA report infuriated Trump, who lashed out at the media and cited Israeli intelligence reports saying the Iranian program had been set back years.
Nuclear experts argue it is too early to know what the ultimate impact of Trump’s bombing raid will be on the Iranian program, let alone what the other fallout from the direct engagement of the U.S. in another Middle East conflict may be. But the DIA report reflected an underlying reality of international affairs: nothing is certain. And as much as disruption can drive needed change, it can also have unintended consequences.
The traditional way of defending against the risks of uncertainty has been to build up institutions and alliances that can absorb it. But there are few global institutions that Trump has not managed to undermine. He has pulled out of several and ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review “all international organizations” to which the U.S. belongs to determine whether these “are contrary to the interests” of America. “Global multilateralism is virtually dead,” says the MSC’s Franke. “Unilateral action by the U.S. and opportunistic diplomacy has replaced institution building and institutional action.”
NATO has long been a target of Trump’s ire. The alliance is like an insurance policy, with a commitment by member states to come to one another's defense when they are attacked. Getting its members to pay more for their own defense may have saved the alliance for now, but it comes with its own set of risks. Trump had to threaten not to defend U.S. allies to get them to pay—a warning he repeated just before arriving in The Hague. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that several European intelligence agencies have said the chances that Russia will attempt to attack a NATO member is rising.
Read More: The Man Who Wants To Save NATO.
The 5% target could backfire domestically, too. To spend that money on making themselves less dependent on the U.S., European countries will have to cut spending on other priorities. Shipping money to America for advanced weapons systems while lowering spending on public services is not a recipe for political stability in an age of rising populism. Some on the far right in The Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere have already resisted boosting NATO defense spending, and the left has long opposed it. Populists on both sides will argue that “instead of investing in defense, why not seek a better relationship with Russia and spend all that money on social issues?” says Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Read More: Trump Campaigned on No More Wars. Now He's Risking One.
Trump’s antipathy toward international institutions is matched by his disregard for the parts of his own government that handle foreign affairs and national security. He’s shrunk and sidelined the State Department and the National Security Council. He ousted his first National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, and is relying on his Secretary of State Marco Rubio to do double duty in the job. “The world is complicated,” says Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware on the sidelines of the NATO summit. “President Trump's just winging it.”
No one, including Trump, needs to be reminded of the consequences of getting military action wrong in the Middle East. One of the primary drivers of the MAGA movement was the fallout of America’s misadventure in Iraq. Trump's aversion to foreign military entanglements may be one reason why he pivoted right back to diplomacy in the wake of the Iran bombing, even seeming to confirm in his final NATO press conference that he was easing sanctions on Iran’s sale of oil. But with the fate of Iran’s nuclear program unknown, and the consequences of America’s intervention still unclear, Trump may be living with the repercussions for the rest of his presidency, and beyond.
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