President Donald Trump will be engaging in numerous foreign policy discussions this upcoming week at a NATO summit, where more than just Ukraine will be the focus of conversations between foreign leaders.
A senior Trump official told the Wall Street Journal Sunday that the president still intends to attend the summit that will be held in The Hague, starting Wednesday. He will depart for the Netherlands on Tuesday and arrive late in the evening the same day.
It is a slight schedule change from his originally planned departure date of Monday, per previous reports.
Trump was expected to attend a state dinner between foreign leaders on Tuesday evening, but it is unclear whether he will still attend due to the late-Tuesday arrival time. The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for additional information about the president’s schedule.
The schedule change comes after the president recently abruptly left the G7 economic summit in Canada to attend to the ongoing situation in the Middle East that tamped up Saturday.
The summit between foreign leaders will likely include conversations about Trump’s recent decision to involve the United States in Israel’s campaign in the Middle East.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to be in attendance as well, with leaders expected to discuss ongoing assistance to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia. However, Ukraine’s crisis is not expected to be the central issue of concern, with global tensions in Iran likely to take a major chunk of the summit’s attention.
Leaders are also expected to discuss NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s proposal that each member country contribute at least 5% of their gross domestic product to defense spending. The idea, framed as a Trump win, has been rejected by Spain, while others have taken issue with the speed at which the move to increase NATO-member defense spending has taken.
The summit will end Wednesday and Trump will depart back to Washington thereafter. There will be heavy security and protesters have already taken to the streets in protest of the upcoming summit.
