“Donald, you will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done,” Mark Rutte gushed, in a laughably laudatory text message to Donald Trump. “It was not easy but we’ve got them all signed onto 5 percent!”

Trump posted a screenshot of the message on social media Tuesday between browbeating Israel for jeopardizing an hours-old truce with Iran and carrying on ceaselessly about anything and everything while en route to the NATO summit at The Hague.

Rutte, who exited Dutch politics last year after a historically long run as prime minister, stepped into the NATO secretary general role in October. Like the late Shinzo Abe, Rutte has a knack for flattering Trump, which is arguably the only skill you need to succeed as NATO chief when Trump’s in the Oval Office.

Rutte wrote to Trump in his own language, and I don’t mean English. The text was redundant (“Mr. President, dear Donald,”), described Trump’s actions as singular feats of brashness and brilliance (“truly extraordinary,” “something no one else dared do”), promised Trump a “win” and employed all-caps for emphasis on the only word Trump likes more than “tariff”: “BIG.”

No serious person believed Rutte’s text, shown above in all its absurdist glory, reflected his actual feelings towards a US president who makes being a son-of a-bitch such a point of pride. Only Trump would read that message as anything other than a wildly overwrought attempt at flattery.

But that’s the thing about Trump. Part of him wants to believe that people like Rutte are actually enamored with, and envious of, his actions and accomplishments as President of the United States. But another part of him delights in the notion that people who actually don’t care for him are nevertheless compelled to engage in fulsome displays of adulation lest they should be smote, figuratively or literally, economically or militarily.

Put as a question, is Trump just that dumb? So dumb that he doesn’t see, in ridiculous texts like that one from Rutte, attempts to manipulate a US president through flattery? I doubt it. Or I doubt that’s all of it.

The simpleton in Trump’s certainly that dumb, but he also views obsequious pandering as evidence that he’s succeeding as a strongman. The Trump who was humiliated by Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner can’t suffer being laughed at. That Trump’s still with us, but by now, in 2025, there’s another Trump who wonders, “Why should I care if they’re rolling their eyes and smirking when I’m not looking? The joke’s on them: They gotta kiss the ring.”

And they did. NATO members kissed the ring this week. As Rutte alluded to in his text, the alliance acquiesced to new spending targets for members, who’ll commit 5% of GDP to defense by 2035. Here’s the language from the new declaration:

United in the face of profound security threats and challenges, in particular the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security and the persistent threat of terrorism, Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense-and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations, in accordance with Article 3 of the Washington Treaty. Our investments will ensure we have the forces, capabilities, resources, infrastructure, warfighting readiness and resilience needed to deter and defend in line with our three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management and cooperative security.

Allies agree that this 5% commitment will comprise two essential categories of defense investment. Allies will allocate at least 3.5% of GDP annually based on the agreed definition of NATO defense expenditure by 2035 to resource core defense requirements, and to meet the NATO Capability Targets. Allies agree to submit annual plans showing a credible, incremental path to reach this goal. And Allies will account for up to 1.5% of GDP annually to inter alia protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation and strengthen our defense industrial base.

I doubt Trump was enthusiastic about the singling out of Russia, but this is NATO we’re talking about. The whole point is to deter Russian aggression. That’s the alliance’s raison d’être.

Absent from the declaration was an allusion to the long-standing notion that Ukraine has a future in NATO. The Trump administration’s position is that alliance accession for Ukraine isn’t on the cards. There’s an argument to be made, even by Kyiv’s international defenders, that continuing to string Ukraine along on that unmet promise is cruel and in fact detrimental to the country’s security. That’s not my position, but I’ll admit to being more sympathetic to that argument now than I was a couple of years ago.

The new declaration did, however, suggest that NATO members could count their own expenditures in support of Kyiv towards the 5% target. Or at least that’s how I read it. “Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and, to this end, will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defense and its defense industry when calculating Allies’ defense spending,” the statement said.

Trump raised eyebrows on Tuesday by suggesting Article 5 — the mutual defense clause, without which the alliance serves no purpose — is open to interpretation. “There [are] numerous definitions of Article 5,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, while traveling to Europe. “I’m committed to being their friends.” That’s — and I’ll be polite — not especially comforting if you’re, say, the Baltic states.

Later, Trump reluctantly acknowledged America’s commitments. “I stand with [Article 5]. That’s why I’m here,” he said. “If I didn’t stand with it I wouldn’t be here.”

Asked about Trump’s suggestion that the mutual defense clause admits of ambiguity, Rutte said Article 5’s “absolutely clear.” Then, in the very next breath, he equivocated. “At the same time, we will never go into details when exactly Article 5 will be triggered because we don’t want to make our adversaries any wiser.”

Pressed on whether the alliance can still depend on America, Rutte suggested the answer’s “yes.” “I have known [Donald Trump] for almost 10 years,” he said. “He’s a good friend. I trust him.”