NATO secretary general Mark Rutte meets Donald Trump in Florida
NATO secretary general Mark Rutte has met US president-elect Donald Trump, for the first time since the US elections earlier this month. Rutte travelled to Trump's estate in Florida on Friday to discuss "global security issues facing the Alliance", NATO said.
On Friday, Dutch media reported that Rutte had taken a Dutch government plane leased by NATO to Florida. The plane landed not far from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's estate in Palm Beach.
NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah confirmed the report on Saturday. Rutte and Trump "discussed the full range of global security issues facing the Alliance", she said in a brief statement. No further details of the conversation were given.
Collective threats
Two days after the US presidential election, Rutte had already indicated that he wanted to meet Trump to discuss how NATO could defend itself against collective threats.
"What I am thinking about in particular is how the role that North Korea is now playing in Russia's war against Ukraine shows how these countries are working together," he said. "This is a threat not only to the European arm of NATO, but also to the United States."
Trump has regularly criticised European NATO members for not spending enough on defence. If this does not change, the president-elect has threatened to withdraw US troops from Eastern Europe and even to leave the alliance altogether.
© PHOTO SAUL LOEB, WOJTEK RADWANSKI / AFP
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