NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called President Donald Trump’s security deal with Greenland and Denmark “fantastic news” on a visit to Iowa to highlight the importance of the alliance.
Trump announced the deal Sept. 22 at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The agreement will allow more U.S. military bases in Greenland while keeping the country under Danish control. It eased tensions after Trump previously threatened to seize control of Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally.
“I think it is really fantastic news,” Rutte said in an interview with the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network. “President Trump has been pushing for a bigger awareness of the threats the Arctic is facing, and Greenland being a case in point. We see that new sea lanes are opening up, you see that the Chinese and the Russians are more and more active in the Arctic.”
The agreement will remain in place even if Greenland were to someday become independent from Denmark — something U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker said is essential.
“A country of 50,000 people, independent, with no membership in NATO, would be essentially a geopolitical jump ball where our adversaries could try to make a move on, essentially, the front doorstep of the United States,” he said.
Key UN takeaways: Trump threatens Iran, predicts Cuba’s fall
Secretary General says Iowa motto is ‘what NATO is all about’
Rutte is using the visit to Iowa — Whitaker’s home state — to make the case that NATO is important to Iowans’ safety and security.
“It is so important to bring the NATO story to the Midwest, to the United States citizens, the men and women living in this fantastic nation,” he said. “To explain that NATO is not only there to protect Europe, but also there to protect the United States mainland, and that we are absolutely committed to do that.”
He spoke to the Des Moines Register before delivering a speech sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in downtown Des Moines Sept. 22.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, and US Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker speak with the Des Moines REgister, Tuesday, September 22, 2026, in Des Moines, at the Iowa Capitol.
While in Iowa, Rutte and Whitaker also planned to meet with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and tour the Iowa National Guard Joint Forces Headquarters.
Whitaker is an Iowa Republican who also served in Trump’s first administration as acting attorney general.
In his speech, Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, praised Whitaker as “my favorite former Iowa Hawkeyes tight end,” and called him a “truly excellent representative of this great nation and your great state.”
Whitaker, a Des Moines native, said bringing Rutte to Iowa was also about sharing his background with his colleagues at NATO.
“I really wanted to show off my beloved home state to my friends that I work with every day in Brussels,” he said. “So that they can understand sort of where I’m coming from, and maybe understand a few of my colloquialisms as well.”
In his address, Rutte cast the organization’s mission as more than “just a lofty ideal.”
“We’re a deeply practical, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work alliance,” he said. “I’d like to think we’re sort of Iowan in that way.”
He said he was struck by the motto on Iowa’s flag: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”
“This is what NATO is all about,” he said. “Drawn together by a commitment to liberty, democracy, and the rule of law, we’re doing the daily work to make sure that we can protect what matters, together.”
Rutte calls for increased defense investments
In his address, Rutte emphasized the role NATO plays in Americans’ national security and sought to underscore the need for continued investments.
“When it comes to securing the U.S. homeland, you need a secure Europe, a secure Atlantic, and a secure Arctic,” he said. “The U.S. is mighty, but doing all of this alone is not efficient, and it’s not necessary. You now have 31 Allies in NATO. And these 31 other democratic countries joined NATO in order to contribute to our collective security.”
He noted that the United States called on NATO for support after it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.
And he touted the need for increased defense investments.
“We’re working with industry to ensure they ramp up production,” he said. “Because right now, the supply cannot meet the demand on either side of the Atlantic. And we’re working to cut red tape when it comes to procurement, because we need things to work more quickly and flexibly on both the government and industry side of the picture.”
Rutte said that investment pays off for American companies in what he called a “defense dividend.”
“More jobs. More innovation. More opportunities across the whole of NATO, not least here in the United States,” he said. “Last year alone we saw nearly 200,000 American jobs supported by sales from top U.S. defense companies to Europe, or by European defense companies producing here in the United States.”
Visit comes amid US-NATO tension
The visit comes amid continued tension between NATO and the United States.
Earlier this year, Trump threatened to withdraw from NATO over frustrations that the group wasn’t doing enough to aid U.S. efforts in Iran.
Speaking to the Des Moines Register, Rutte praised Trump’s actions in Iran, saying it was important to degrade the country’s nuclear capability.
“In this case, with Iran, I think the president was right,” he said. “There was the threat. It had to be degraded. And it was very much in the interest of the Middle East, Israel, and Europe.”
Trump has, for years, suggested that the United States has borne an unfair share of the NATO burden and has demanded other allied countries step up their financial contribution to the organization.
In his speech Tuesday night, Rutte acknowledged those concerns, saying the U.S. has done much of the “heavy lifting” when it comes to defense and financial investment.
“But things have changed,” he said, noting that NATO members have agreed to begin investing 5% of their nation’s GDP into the organization within 10 years.
“The progress we’ve seen just two years into this 10-year project is remarkable,” he said.
Still, Trump has suggested the increased investments may not be enough.
“We don’t need their money — we don’t need anything,” Trump said at a July NATO summit in Turkey. “I just want loyalty.”
Rutte characterized the U.S. relationship with NATO as “very strong.”
“Trump, indeed, is quite forceful in making his views known,” he said. “The positive of that is that things change. It gets things moving into gear and into motion.”
That was the case with both NATO defense spending and Greenland, he said.
“You can always debate style, but I look at the outcome,” he said. “And he is achieving great things by being sometimes a bit forceful.”
Whitaker said while Trump’s threats to seize Greenland created “a lot of churn in the media and in the think tank world” it didn’t affect his work at NATO.
“I immediately went to my Danish colleague, and, you know, we had a coffee and made sure that this wasn’t going to impact or affect any of the work we were doing around the table,” he said.
Strong Ukraine key for peace deal with Russia, Rutte says
Rutte and Whitaker also talked about what it will take to bring Russia’s four-year war in Ukraine to an end.
“Both have to come to the table,” Rutte said. “So Zelenskyy wants a deal. The question is whether Putin is now ready to really start to negotiate in all fairness. And it is important that Ukraine is as strong as possible when those talks start.”
Whitaker and Rutte both praised NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program, which involves European countries purchasing military equipment from the United States to provide to Ukraine.
“Just because we don’t have one yet, doesn’t mean we won’t have one soon or in the future,” Whitaker said of a peace deal. “So I think we’ll continue to create the circumstances where both sides can come together and make a deal.”
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She writes about campaigns, elections and the Iowa Caucuses. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: NATO secretary general praises Trump’s Greenland deal in Iowa visit