POLITICO - Rutte’s new plan to keep Trump in NATO: Buy more from the US - May 21, 2026 8:51 pm CET By Victor Jack and Jacopo Barigazzi

 

Rutte’s new plan to keep Trump in NATO: Buy more from the US

Mark Rutte wants new focus on defense industry deals to close a yawning production gap in Europe — but also keep the U.S. president on board.

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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, and Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson speak at the Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency in Revinge, Lund, in Sweden on May 21, 2026, as part of a NATO meeting set to take place in Helsingborg on May 21-22. | Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

May 21, 2026 8:51 pm CET

By Victor Jack and Jacopo Barigazzi

HELSINGBORG, Sweden — Mark Rutte has a new plan to keep Donald Trump from turning his back on NATO: Promise new defense deals that benefit the U.S.

Defense production will be a priority topic as NATO foreign ministers meet in the southern Swedish city of Helsingborg on Friday.

The NATO chief has in recent weeks spearheaded a campaign to dramatically scale up defense production and deals, as he scrambles to make the July Ankara summit of alliance leaders a success, three senior NATO diplomats said. That’s aimed at bridging a genuine European shortfall, they said, but also making an economic case that resonates with Trump.

“I think it's so good that Rutte is highlighting this in Ankara so that we can have common standards, better interoperability, and produce more and cheaper,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told POLITICO. “We need to continue to trade and continue to produce weapons together, and the U.S. has some unique capabilities,” she said.

Rutte's plan is “good news for the U.S.” too, said one of the diplomats.

But any effort to deeply involve the alliance in defense deals is likely to spark a clash with the EU, which has unveiled legal proposals and loans worth billions to prioritize the development of the bloc's own defense industry. 

The new strategy reflects the difficulty Rutte faces in finding a unifying topic for an otherwise strained alliance. Trump this month blindsided Germany and Poland with announcements of troop cutbacks. Allies are also struggling to agree on new ways of boosting aid to Ukraine and are split over whether NATO could play a role in reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The focus on industry “makes full sense to distract from divisions elsewhere,” said Gerlinde Niehus, a former longtime NATO official.

Deal or no deal

At the heart of Rutte's strategy is bringing commitments and real-world evidence of defense spending to the table in Ankara.

In public, Rutte has repeatedly raised the issue and cajoled industry into scaling up production — whether or not they have agreed-upon contracts.

“Commercial companies are there to make sure that where there are business opportunities, you grasp it — there is now a huge business opportunity,” he said in Sweden on Thursday. “You will see in Ankara ... this is a main issue to be discussed.” 

In private, he has pressed European allies to bring evidence of increased production and industrial contracts to the July summit, said a fourth senior NATO diplomat. “Rutte has told allies, whatever you have in the pipeline, please bring it to Ankara,” they said.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on October 22, 2025. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

That includes encouraging joint ventures with American defense firms and more U.S. arms sales, according to two senior NATO diplomats. Boosting production will also likely be “a huge part” of the summit declaration, said the second senior diplomat.

The declaration will be packaged with deals that NATO has not yet formally announced, according to a person familiar with the matter, including the decision to replace its aging fleet of Boeing 707 AWACS aircraft with Saab’s GlobalEye reconnaissance planes.

Separately, the alliance will present a revamp at the summit of its 2013 Framework for NATO Industry Engagement governing its relationship with defense firms, which may include proposals like integration of startups into NATO-wide exercises.

But achieving Rutte's plan to curry favor with Trump won't be easy because the NATO chief has few tools to actually affect industrial production, said Becca Wasser, defense lead at Bloomberg Economics.

Arms purchases are under national control, while the alliance can do little more than send a "demand signal," she said. But that doesn't work for smaller defense firms that can't invest in production lines without contracts.

Any mention of joint ventures could also fall flat, as such arrangements are often held up by slow permitting in Europe and U.S. wariness of relinquishing technology controls and intellectual property, she said.

Any pressure on European allies to buy more from the U.S. is also likely to open up a rift with the EU. Brussels has pushed hard to favor European defense firms in the programs it is financing.

“The U.S. has not been super reliable and [European] strategic autonomy is gaining momentum,” said one EU diplomat, saying that, “We are going to spend a lot for our defense" so the bloc's own companies should see a benefit.

This article has been updated.