NATO’s Stoltenberg has parting words for Europe: Don’t fear Trump, work with him

BRUSSELS — For European leaders dreading having to work with Donald Trump, outgoing NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg has three words: Just do it.

A day before stepping down as the military alliance’s secretary-general, Stoltenberg on Monday called on skeptical European governments to “do whatever we can” to persuade Trump to maintain U.S. support for Ukraine, if he wins November’s election.

“Whoever is elected as the president of the United States in November, I think it is important for European allies [to] engage with the United States to ensure that they continue to support Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told POLITICO in his final one-on-one media interview as NATO chief.

He will be replaced by former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday, marking the end of the Norwegian’s 10 years at the helm of the alliance, making him the second-longest-serving chief in NATO’s history.

Although Stoltenberg steered NATO through the tumultuous Trump administration from 2017-21, he wouldn’t speculate why the Republican candidate mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the greatest salesman in history” last week before a meeting in the U.S.

However, Stoltenberg recalled Trump’s efforts as president to provide Ukraine with Javelins, an anti-tank weapon with which Ukrainian troops resisted the Russian invasion.

“It’s important that European allies don’t create self-fulfilling prophecies, but actually … do whatever we can to ensure that the U.S. continues to support Ukraine,” the NATO chief said. All European allies, he added, should “convey very clearly to the United States” that it “will not bring peace” to Ukraine if it cannot continue as a sovereign, independent nation.

Trump has spent a great deal of energy criticizing Europe — especially Germany — for failing to meet a NATO target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.

Under Stoltenberg’s watch, the 32-strong alliance saw the number of countries fulfilling that goal jump from three to 23.

“The bad news is that 2 percent is not enough,” Stoltenberg said in the interview. “I am not willing to put a specific number on that, because it was very much on how they [member countries] organized their own defense … It’s obvious that it has to be significantly more than 2 percent.”

He also hit back at suggestions from Baltic countries and Germany that the Baltic region could come under Russian attack in as short as five years.

“We should not talk as if it is inevitable that Russia will attack. The thing is that NATO’s there to prevent that from happening,” he said, stressing NATO’s credible deterrence. “I’m afraid of some of the rhetoric that indicates in a way that within a certain [number] of years Russia will attack. No, they will not attack as long as we are strong and united. And that’s the purpose of NATO.”

That ceases to be Stoltenberg’s problem when he leaves NATO on Tuesday — and he had kind words for his successor.

“I’m absolutely certain that Mark Rutte has all the qualifications to be a perfect and great secretary-general. I think it’s a strength of democratic nations and democratic institutions … that we change at the top. It’s part of what makes NATO strong,” he said.

Stoltenberg described it as a “strange” feeling to leave after 10 years. “It’s time to leave … But at the same time, I will miss NATO. I have friends, I have people here that I will miss, but that’s part of life.

“And to be honest, I have stepped down before [as Norwegian finance minister in 1997], and I always had the same kind of feeling of stepping into emptiness … Every time, something new and exciting will happen,” he added.