NATO Secretary General meets with Trump in Florida

Before the change of power in the USA

Updated 11/23/2024 – 9:45 a.mReading time: 2 minutes

As head of the Dutch government, Rutte has met Trump several times. (archive image for illustration) (Source: Alex Brandon/AP/dpa/dpa-bilder)

Donald Trump’s second term in office is viewed with concern by many NATO allies. Even before the change of power, the alliance’s secretary general traveled to the USA to exchange ideas with him.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida. “They discussed a number of global security issues facing the alliance,” NATO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah told the German Press Agency in Brussels. She did not provide any details. She only added that the meeting had already taken place on Friday. It had not been announced publicly.

According to information from alliance circles, the meeting was supposed to focus, among other things, on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the issue of defense spending. During the election campaign, Trump claimed that he could end the Russian war of aggression in 24 hours and demanded that all allies spend three percent of their gross domestic product on defense in the future. In addition to the USA, only four of the 32 NATO states currently achieve this mark. Germany is estimated to reach just 2.1 percent this year.

In NATO, most member states would have preferred a victory for the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Trump’s statements in the past had raised doubts about whether the United States would fully support its commitment under his leadership. During his term of office from 2017 to 2021, he repeatedly complained about what he considered to be too low defense spending by European allies and at times even threatened that the USA would leave the alliance.

Rutte nevertheless appeared calm after Trump’s election victory. “Through NATO, the United States has 31 friends and allies who help advance U.S. interests, multiply American power and ensure the security of Americans,” he said. Together, the allies represented half of the world’s economic and military strength. Cooperation in NATO helps to deter aggression, protect collective security and support the economy.

It was Rutte’s first meeting with Trump in his new role. As head of the Dutch government, he has met the Republican several times. During a meeting with Rutte in 2019, Trump said he and Rutte had become friends.