Trump to Meet NATO Leader Rut 04/08 06:47

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is expected to meet 
with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to try to smooth over the president's 
anger with the military alliance over the Iran war.

   Trump had suggested the U.S. may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic 
alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the Strait 
of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, as Iran effectively shut it and sent gas 
prices soaring.

   The Republican president's meeting with Rutte, with whom he had a warm 
relationship, comes as the U.S. and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week 
ceasefire that includes the reopening of the strait. The nascent ceasefire was 
struck after Trump said he would strike Iran's power plants and bridges, 
threatening that "a whole civilization will die tonight."

   The plan to reopen the strait is still cloudy and is expected to be a 
central focus of the Wednesday afternoon meeting with Rutte. The White House 
said the meeting was expected to be behind closed doors. In the Trump 
administration, though, that can change at the last minute, and meetings can be 
opened to the press.

   Congress in 2023 passed a law that prevents any U.S. president from pulling 
out of NATO without its approval. Trump has been a longtime critic of NATO and 
in his first term had suggested he had the authority on his own to leave the 
alliance, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Cold War threat posed to 
European security by the Soviet Union.

   The crux of the commitment its 32 member countries make is a mutual defense 
agreement in which an attack on one is considered an attack on them all. The 
only time it has been activated was in 2001, to support the United States in 
the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

   Despite that, Trump has complained during his war of choice with Iran that 
NATO has shown it will not be there for the U.S.

   Ahead of the meeting, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, issued a 
statement Tuesday night in support of the alliance, noting that, "Following the 
September 11th attacks, NATO allies sent their young servicemembers to fight 
and die alongside America's own in Afghanistan and Iraq." McConnell, who sits 
on a committee overseeing defense spending, urged Trump to be "clear and 
consistent" and said it's not in America's interest to "spend more time nursing 
grudges with allies who share our interests than deterring adversaries who 
threaten us."

   If Rutte's meeting does not alleviate Trump's frustrations, it's unclear if 
the Trump administration would challenge the law barring a president from 
pulling out of NATO. When the law passed, it was championed by Trump's current 
secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who at the time was a senator from Florida.

   The alliance was already rattled over the past year as Trump returned to 
power and reduced U.S. military support for Ukraine in the war against Russia 
and threatened to seize Greenland from ally Denmark.

   But Trump's badgering of NATO intensified after the Iran war began at the 
end of February, with the president insisting that securing the Strait of 
Hormuz was not America's job but the responsibility of countries that depend on 
the flow of oil through it.

   "Go to the strait and just take it," Trump said last week.

   Trump was also angered as NATO allies Spain and France forbade or restricted 
use of their airspace or joint military facilities for the U.S. in the Iran 
war. They and other nations, however, agreed to help with an international 
coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.

   British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been a particular source of 
Trump's frustration, was set to travel on Wednesday to the Gulf to support the 
ceasefire. The U.K. has been working on developing a post-conflict security 
plan for the strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which 
about one-fifth of the world's oil passes.