A month after a G7 summit broke up in acrimony, US allies are desperate to avoid another confrontation with Donald Trump — this time over Nato.
But, as diplomats brace themselves for the security alliance’s summit next week, the deeper fear is that the US president will cut funds and forces from the continent’s defence and perhaps move closer to Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the meeting’s aftermath.
Analysts say that US troops in Germany, a Nato battlegroup in Poland and an ambitious new fund intended to deter Russia are potential targets because of Mr Trump’s wrath over what he sees as freeriding by Washington’s allies.
“There is a Trump hell where [in his view] Nato is as bad as Nafta and the EU and worse than China,” said one European official. “It raises the question of the future of transatlantic relationships.”
The Europeans’ anxiety is still greater because Mr Trump will hold a summit with Mr Putin in Helsinki on July 16, just days after the July 11-12 gathering at Nato headquarters.
The European official added that although US officials have been engaged in “damage control” in European capitals ahead of the Nato summit, they have also been cautioning “that they don’t know what President Trump is going to do or say”.
Another European official said: “It’s pretty much up to Trump and how he relates this to what he’s doing with Putin.”
Mr Trump has long made clear his dissatisfaction with Nato allies who fail to meet the alliance’s target of spending 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence — particularly Germany.
The White House is considering relocating or withdrawing some of the 35,000 US troops based in the country, according to officials familiar with the matter — although the Pentagon has reassured Berlin no decision has been taken.
Mr Trump and Jim Mattis, defence secretary, have sent pointed letters to Nato allies, including Canada and the UK, calling on them to do more on defence.
The president’s June 19 dispatch to Erna Solberg, Norway’s premier, warned that it would “become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries fail to meet our shared collective security commitments”, according to a copy seen by the FT.
Responding to such concerns, Frank Bakke-Jensen, Norway’s defence minister, said his country had increased defence funding by 24 per cent in real terms since 2013.
But Europeans will feel they have got away lightly if they suffer only verbal barbs or another failure by the president — as at last year’s summit — to commit publicly to Nato’s Article 5 on collective defence.
European diplomats accept they need to do more to respond to US calls, dating back well before Mr Trump, to spend more — especially as Nato says barely half its 29 members have credible plans to reach the 2 per cent benchmark by 2025.
The greater cause for alarm in Nato is that Mr Trump will return to campaign trail attacks on the alliance as “obsolete” — and act accordingly.
Tomas Valasek, director of Carnegie Europe and a former Slovak ambassador to Nato, said European Nato members worry about potential concessions to Mr Putin. He pointed to Mr Trump’s decision last month to suspend joint military exercises with South Korea after he met North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
“The fear is that President Trump does what he did on North Korea,” Mr Valasek said. “He signs a hollow deal with a regional troublemaker — and does something he wanted to do all along: reduce US forces and spending in this part of the world.”
Few Nato allies will be as concerned as the Baltic states, the small countries on the frontline with Russia, which have already been unsettled by Mr Trump’s description of the South Korean exercises as “provocative”.
Moscow has used similar language about Nato’s missile defence programme and multinational battle groups in the Baltic states and Poland. Some analysts say the battlegroup in Poland, which is US-run, could be hit by Trump cuts.
But Baltic officials argue that, despite the president’s outbursts, his administration has provided more support for the region to date than did Barack Obama’s.
Marko Mihkelson, chair of the foreign affairs committee in Estonia’s parliament, said that so far under Mr Trump the number of US troops in eastern Europe and direct help for the Baltics have increased.
Some experts caution such commitments should not be taken for granted.
Mr Valasek said a “low-hanging fruit” for potential cuts by Mr Trump was the European Deterrence Initiative to boost the US military presence on the continent, set up after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
The programme, scheduled to grow from $789m in 2016 to $6.5bn next year, is intended to provide financial backing for activities such as the forward deployment of armoured brigade combat teams and fighter aircraft as well as support for anti-submarine warfare.
Mr Valasek said curtailing it would punish states in Nato’s eastern reaches — including the Baltic countries and Poland — that have reached the alliance spending target or have plans to do so soon.
Many analysts argue European countries need detailed plans to make themselves self-sufficient in security, for their own benefit as to ward off Mr Trump’s criticism.
Sir Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to Nato, said Europeans had already “gratefully rallied” to a US proposal, known as 30-30-30-30, to expand the alliance’s high-readiness forces.
Under the plan, Nato would have 30 land battalions, 30 ships, and 30 warplane squadrons ready to deploy on 30 days notice.
“That’s likely to be the summit’s headline offering to Trump,” said Sir Adam. “But no one — including US officials — knows if that will be enough”.
