Rutte says US tariffs do not violate Nato commitments on ‘eliminating conflict in international economic policies’
Rutte gets pressed on US tariffs, with reporters mentioning Article 2 of the Nato treaty, which says the parties
… will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.
At first, he refuses to engage once again.
“My role is deeply focusing on the defence of Nato territory, and that is why I’m not commenting on other things then directly related to the defence of Nato, the euro, Atlantic, and of course, when it comes to the Indo Pacific,” he says.
But eventually he makes soft comments that appear to defend Trump from criticism as he says he doesn’t think the measures pursued by the US are in breach of Article 2.
“We have seen in the past many examples of differences of view, of fights over tariffs. This has happened before without that being in violation of Article Two,” he says.
Key events
Rutte’s dance around difficult questions shows his impossible position – snap analysis
Jakub Krupa
This press conference laid bare that Rutte is in a really difficult position as Nato’s secretary general, as he has to avoid causing any friction in his relationship with the easily irritable White House – and Trump’s policies are not making it easy.
He repeatedly tried to avoid questions on Trump’s tariffs, Russia policy, or US plans to take control over Greenland.
If he were to give his honest answer, it’s probably safe to assume he would have to distance himself from the US president and risk their relationship, with consequences for the alliance and Europe’s security, so he chooses to sidestep them instead.
He even kind of hinted at that when he said “I don’t think I’m helping this alliance by commenting on something which is not really part of Alliance policy,” which sounded to me like “you know what you think, and you know exactly why I can’t say that.”
But there is no escaping from the fact that it does not look great and could lead to some frustration between European allies, as we have seen with Denmark’s reported annoyance at him for sidestepping Trump’s comments on Greenland during his White House visit.
And that ends his press conference. We should hear from US state secretary Marco Rubio very soon, too.
Rutte sidesteps question on Greenland
Rutte also gets asked about the US interest in Greenland and whether Article 5 would apply “if an attack comes from within, and how would Nato respond.”
Once again, he sidesteps a difficult question.
“I think we should zoom out from Greenland, and we should look at the High North in the Arctic in general, because there is an issue in the Arctic with Chinese using the new sea lanes coming up, Russia rearming and arming parts of the Arctic.
And that is why the seven Arctic countries within Nato, US and Canada, Denmark through Greenland, but also Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, are working together, all seven.
And Nato is involved to make sure that we take the necessary next steps to defend this part of Nato territory.”
‘Clear for the whole Nato that Russia is a long term threat,’ Rutte says
Rutte also gets pressed between “discrepancies” between his comments on Nato and the view of the US administration which seeks to do business with Moscow.
He starts by praising Trump for “commendable” effort to bring the Russian invasion of Ukraine to an end, particularly as “the war was not developing in the right direction” when he came into office.
But he adds that “it is clear for the whole of Nato [that] Russia is a long term threat, even if this war will come to an end.”
He says “nobody is naive about Russia,” but again acknowledges the need to hold talks with Moscow about ending the war.
He adds the process is closely watched by China’s Xi Jinping who “wants to know at the end, who comes out on top? Is it the West, or is it Russia?”
“And if it is Russia, it will give him thoughts about what he could do in his region, because he also has some territorial claims, which he might want then to entertain,” he warns.
Rutte repeatedly refuses to engage with questions on US tariffs
Aaaand back to US tariffs.
Rutte gets another push back on his refusal to engage on the subject, with the reporter noting that as the alliance keeps calling for ramp up in defence spending, the allies’ ability to do so will be affected by the impact of tariffs.
But he once again seeks to avoid giving a meaningful answer.
“Obviously, national governments have to make their decisions, and politics is making choices in scarcity,” he says.
He then says:
“It can always be an issue that the money you expected to be there is not there because of inflation or because of the fact that the GDP is not growing like you expected in the past, or what forecasts were, etc, but that is what national politics, politics and politicians have to navigate, and that’s what they are doing.
And I don’t think I’m helping this alliance by commenting on something which is not really part of Alliance policy.”
Rutte also gets asked about China and whether it is a threat or a challenge.
He says that “when you look at the buildup of the defence industrial base in China, when you look at the fact that they have no more Navy ships sailing than the US, that they will go to 1000 nuclear warheads by 2030, it’s absolutely clear that we cannot be naive about China.”
“That’s the reason why we work so intensely together with, indeed, Japan and Korea, but also Australia, New Zealand and the importance now is that we deepen that cooperation,” he says.
Rutte says US tariffs do not violate Nato commitments on ‘eliminating conflict in international economic policies’
Rutte gets pressed on US tariffs, with reporters mentioning Article 2 of the Nato treaty, which says the parties
… will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.
At first, he refuses to engage once again.
“My role is deeply focusing on the defence of Nato territory, and that is why I’m not commenting on other things then directly related to the defence of Nato, the euro, Atlantic, and of course, when it comes to the Indo Pacific,” he says.
But eventually he makes soft comments that appear to defend Trump from criticism as he says he doesn’t think the measures pursued by the US are in breach of Article 2.
“We have seen in the past many examples of differences of view, of fights over tariffs. This has happened before without that being in violation of Article Two,” he says.
Asked further about Ukraine, Rutte lists a number of projects by Nato member states, including Poland, Denmark, and the Czech Republic.
He says that “the shortest answer” to question on safety guarantees is to adopt measures that make sure that “Putin will never, ever try again to get one square kilometer or one square mile of Ukraine in the future, that he knows that there is a deterrence and a defence by which Ukraine can never be attacked in the future.”
“When you look at Nato and more generally, allies, what we are doing is providing Ukraine what they need to stay in the fight, and that is a an enormous amount of defense support into Ukraine, defense equipment, including ammunition,” he says.
In Q&A, Rutte refuses to offer any comment on US tariffs.
Asked about the US-led talks on Ukraine, he praises Trump for “breaking the deadlock” and starting the talks, but again refuses to say if he would want to see a deadline imposed on Russia as it keeps giving non-commital response to the ceasefire proposal.
“I do not want to interfere in those talks by having my comments from Brussels, to which they then have to react, so we’ll see how this will develop,” he says, repeatedly praising the US for holding these talks.
Nato continues to support Ukraine, Rutte says
Speaking on Ukraine, Rutte says that allies “assured” the country’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha of their continued support “today and to help build its armed forces for the future.”
He says Nato supports the US push for peace and further efforts “spearheaded by France and the UK” to offer Europe-led guarantees.
He also adds that Nato ministers met with the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas to talk about the EU’s plans to ramp up defence spending.
He closes his opening remarks by marking the 76th anniversary of forming Nato.
‘We need Nato more than ever,’ secretary general Rutte says
Rutte says that “the consensus from the discussions these two days is that as the world grows more dangerous, we need Nato more than ever.”
He says Nato “faces real threats to our security, the most direct from Russia, but also from others, state and non-state in the High North, from the south, on the eastern flank and in cyberspace.”
“Whatever the challenges we face, we need to make sure that we have the forces and capabilities necessary to deter aggression and defend ourselves should anyone make the mistake of attacking,” he says, pledging to continue to ramp up Nato spending.
Rutte speaks after Nato ministerial summit
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte is now giving a statement after two days of a Nato ministerial summit in Brussels.
You can follow below and I will bring you the key lines here.
Ireland’s EU commissioner plays down prospects of US big tech retaliation after Trump tariffs
Lisa O’Carroll
The EU justice commissioner Michael McGrath has played down the possibility that services such as US big tech could be sucked into a looming trade war after France said it wanted to attack online services as part of the retaliation to Trump’s tariffs.
France is pushing for Brussels to use new anti-coercion instruments to allow it go beyond trade which would effectively allow it tax on software, social media and streaming services.
In a sign of a potential split in the EU over the issue, McGrath, Ireland’s commissioner in Brussels, told RTÉ there would be “lots of different ideas of how best to respond” but warned that the EU needed to unite around trade, not services, issue.
“This is fundamentally a trade dispute at the moment, even though many other issues have been thrown into the mix over recent days and weeks, and the member states need to work with the European Commission,” he told RTÉ on Friday.
McGrath said that “facts were the victims” in Trump’s new economic policy and it hoped to persuade the US that the trade imbalance when services were taken into account was minuscule, amounting to a €50bn surplus in favour of the EU out of an overall €1.6trn a year in transatlantic business.
Earlier the taoiseach Micheál Martin said “new investment are going to slow very significantly” as a result of the uncertainty with the Industrial Development Agency saying capital investment dropped 30-50% in first quarter of the year.
Martin warned retaliatory weapons should only be used as last resort. “Once you deploy them you are in a fully fledged trade war and people lose out.”
Miranda Bryant
After Mette Frederiksen’s joint press conference with Greenland’s incoming and outgoing leaders, Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Múte B Egede, aboard an inspection ship in Nuuk on Thursday (10:29), JD Vance said the US would protect its interests in the Arctic island “come hell or high water”.
The US vice-president, who visited the US military base in Greenland, Pituffik, last Friday, told Newsmax:
“This matters to our security; this matters to our missile defence, and we’re going to protect America’s interests come hell or high water.”
Vance claimed Greenlanders have “made it very clear that they want to be independent of Denmark” and said the US would exceed the annual block grant paid by Denmark, which used to rule Greenland as a colony and now continues to control its security and defence policies.
“What the president has said is we could give the people of Greenland way more money than that. Again, because the security matters to the United States of America,” he said.
According to Vance, the grant paid by Denmark comes to $60,000 per person in Greenland per year. But how the White House came to that figure is unclear.
Danish broadcaster DR says that Copenhagen transferred 4.3bn DKK to Greenland last year. If you divide that figure by Greenland’s population, 57,000, it says: “It corresponds to roughly 75,000 Danish kroner for each Greenlander.” Or about $11,000.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the White House budget office is in the process of assessing the cost of running Greenland and working out an estimate of how much revenue could be earned from its natural resources.
Frederiksen is due to leave Greenland today after arriving on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, I am keeping an eye on Brussels this morning where they are wrapping up their Nato ministerial summit.
We will hear from Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in just over an hour, and then from US state secretary Marco Rubio.
I will bring you the key lines from both briefings here.
‘You cannot annex another country’, Danish PM tells US
In another telling sign of the new normal, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen had to remind the US last night – in English – that “you cannot annex another country, not even with an argument about international security.”
Denmark and Greenland “want to cooperate with the United States”, she said. “If you want to be more present in Greenland, Greenland and Denmark are ready. If you want to strengthen security in the Arctic, as we would like, let’s do it together.”
She said:
“If we let ourselves be divided as allies, then we do our foes a favor. And I will do everything that I can to prevent that from happening.
When you ask our businesses to invest in the U.S., they do. When you ask us to spend more on our defense, we do; and when you ask of us to strengthen security in the Arctic, we are on the same page
But when you demand to take over a part of the Kingdom of Denmark’s territory, when we are met by pressure and by threats from our closest ally, what are we to believe in about the country that we have admired for so many years?”
Read this report from our Nordic correspondent Miranda Bryant:
Morning opening: Welcome to the new normal
Jakub Krupa
Somewhere between ecstatic posts about the effect of tariffs – leaving markets in turmoil with losses in trillions of dollars …
and about $5m Trump golden card for wealthy immigrants looking to move to the US…
the US president, Donald Trump, took a moment last night to use his social media channels to offer his full backing for the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
In a post on Truth Social, he said:
The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison.
…
I don’t know Marine Le Pen, but do appreciate how hard she worked for so many years. She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a “bookkeeping” error to me. It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!
To avoid any doubt:
Marine Le Pen was this week found guilty of the embezzlement of European parliamentary funds through a fake jobs scam of an unprecedented scale and duration.
No, she is not in prison; if anything, she could continue a long tradition among French politicians and get an electronic tag. And the court was very clear that it wasn’t just a “book-keeping” error.
Not that any of this mattered to Trump.
His comments targeting the French judiciary and fuelling Le Pen’s narrative come at a time of growing tensions with the US, after signs that even president Emmanuel Macron, who previously tried to position himself as a European Trump whisperer, is losing patience with the US president over the succession of crises in foreign, defence and economic policy.
Visibly frustrated, he went as far yesterday as to suggest that French companies should review and suspend their investments in the US until there is more clarity about US tariffs.
Trump’s comments also come at the opportune moment for the far-right, ahead of a “completely peaceful” rally in Paris on Sunday aimed at showing the support for the politician convicted of embezzling EU funds.
Le Pen will speak at the event alongside her ally – and potential stand-in for the 2027 presidential race – Jordan Bardella as well as mayor of “the laboratory for the far right” Perpignan Louis Aliot and Éric Ciotti.
A part of the French left is preparing a counter demonstration, too. Sounds like a lovely lively spring weekend in Paris.
Meanwhile, the presiding judge in her case, Bénédicte de Perthuis, an expert in financial crime, is receiving protection, including increased patrols and regular rounds around her home, after receiving threats, a source close to the case told AFP.
With the appeal court looking to fast-track Le Pen’s appeal so that a verdict could come in mid-2026, early enough to allow her to take part in the 2027 vote if she is successful, this story is set to feature prominently in the French politics for the foreseeable future.
Welcome to the new normal.
But at least it’s Friday, 4 April 2025.
It’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
