NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met President-elect Donald Trump in Florida

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, July 18, 2019, in Washington.
Photo: AP

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met President-elect Donald Trump in Florida as Europe waits apprehensively to see how the next administration will approach the war in Ukraine. They have met for talks on global security, the military alliance said Saturday.

In a brief statement, NATO said Trump and its secretary general, Mark Rutte, met on Friday in Palm Beach, Florida, US News reports.

“They discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance,” the statement said without giving details.

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 U.S. military and openly questioned the value of the alliance that has defined American 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, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, and other members of the president-elect's national security team, the NATO statement said.

The military alliance issued a three-sentence readout of the Friday meeting in Palm Beach, saying that the pair discussed “the range of global security issues.”

Rutte has a reputation for being able to work with Trump from his time as prime minister of the Netherlands. In the weeks leading up to the US election, Rutte was careful to praise Trump’s record in his first term.

On Oct. 1, his first day heading NATO, Rutte commended Trump for pressing the alliance on defense spending and to focus more on China. “I think he was right,” Rutte said.

But during his election campaign, Trump expressed deep skepticism about US support for Ukraine and has said he can end the war quickly.

Rutte, for his part, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine and has said that any peace deal needs to be on terms that Kyiv can accept.

"They discussed the totality of global security issues facing the Alliance," confirmed a brief statement by NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah on Saturday, without giving further details.

Trump regularly criticised NATO, and mainly European Member States for not spending enough on defence. Belgium, where NATO has its headquarters, is currently the second-lowest defence spender among members, having spent just 1.1% of its GDP this year.

Trump did not want to guarantee these members' defence, despite the fact that it is anchored by NATO's Article 5: an attack on one member state is an attack on all member states. Therefore, Rutte will try his best to keep close ties with Trump.

While the specifics of the discussions between Rutte and Trump remain undisclosed, the timing of the visit signals the importance of early dialogue between NATO leadership and the incoming US administration, notes ‘Al Mayadeen’.

Analysts speculate that topics such as defense spending, NATO's role in global conflicts, and the alliance's future strategies may have been on the agenda.

Rutte's visit to the US comes amid heightened tensions that observers warn could escalate into a nuclear conflict.

On Tuesday, Russia unveiled an updated nuclear doctrine as a retaliatory measure against Western powers authorizing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike inside Russia. The decision came shortly after Russia announced it intercepted 5 ATACMS launched from Ukraine.

On Thursday Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at a military site in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Putin later revealed that Russia targeted the Yuzhmash complex in Dnipro, Ukraine, which manufactures missile technology, with a successful strike using the Oreshnik missile.

Oreshnik is Russia's newest hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).

The Russian president disclosed that the hit on Ukraine's Yuzhmash complex was carried out by a ballistic missile in a nuclear-free hypersonic mode and conducted in "combat conditions".

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