US president-elect Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-Genera Mark Rutte have met for talks on global security, a spokesperson for the transatlantic military alliance said on Saturday.
“They discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance,” NATO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah said in a brief statement without giving details.
Trump and Mark Rutte met on Friday in Palm Beach, Florida, the statement added.
Photo: AFP
It appeared to be Rutte’s first meeting with Trump since his Nov. 5 election. Rutte had previously congratulated Trump and said “his leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong” and that he looked forward to working with him.
Trump has for years expressed skepticism about the Western alliance and complained about the defense spending of many of its member nations, which he regarded as too low.
He depicted NATO allies as leeches on the US military and openly questioned the value of the alliance that has defined US foreign policy for decades. He threatened not to defend NATO members that fail to meet defense-spending goals.
Rutte and his team also met Trump’s pick as national security adviser, US Representative Michael Waltz, and other members of the president-elect’s national security team, the NATO statement said.
Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister from October 2010 to July this year, took over at the helm of NATO last month.
He was widely regarded as one of the best European leaders at forging a good working relationship with Trump during his first term as US president from 2017 to 2021.
Additional reporting by staff writer
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Another tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG (liquefied natural gas) 2 project has docked in a Chinese port, ship-tracking data showed, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) tracking data indicated the Russian Voskhod LNG tanker was anchored at an LNG terminal in the port of Tieshan in Guangxi, China. The Russian flagged tanker, with a cargo of 150,000 cubic meters of LNG, was loaded up at the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Gydan in northern Siberia on July 19, LSEG data showed.
RSS