complete all your equipment to start contacts with the returned tenant of the White House. The secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance, the Dutchman Mark Rutte, and the winner of the US elections met this Friday in Florida: “They talked about the various problems for global security that the alliance faces,” spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said this Saturday.
. The United States is the cornerstone of the largest military alliance on the planet and its next president has always been very critical of it. In fact, in his first term, between 2017 and 2021, his administration did not show great involvement in the entity. For this reason, before the start of the second edition of the Republican at the head of the White House, uncertainty has spread among the other partners as to what attitude he will maintain this time.
To clear up doubts, Rutte has not even waited for the tycoon to take charge in the first weeks of next year. This Friday he traveled to Florida, where Trump lives, and met with him. “The Secretary General and his team have also met with Congressman Mike Waltz and members of the president-elect’s security team,” NATO notes in a brief statement, after the information was reported by Dutch media. Waltz will be the next White House Security Advisor.
Since the election result in the US became known on the night of the 5th, Rutte’s plans involve initiating contacts as soon as possible with the president-elect. At NATO headquarters, Trump is expected to see the organization not only in terms of European security, but also in terms of American security. In addition, the majority of allies, bilaterally, would also be speaking with the Republican leader’s entourage for a long time and with the study institutes from which he has drawn his ideas.
In addition, Rutte, who was Prime Minister of the Netherlands during Trump’s first term and maintained a good relationship with the American, has already shown signs of building bridges with him. “When he was president he was the one who encouraged us to exceed 2% [del PIB en Defensa]”, he declared at the beginning of this month, “we are now, on average, and that is largely his work, his success, and we must do more.”
This minimum spending figure on Security and Defense policy has become the objective of all partners. It was set at a NATO assembly in 2014, that is, before Trump’s first term. But it is true that it was the Republican’s complaints and threats to his allies that led the members of the alliance to focus on this issue. Years later, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, that objective has become a ground (from which Spain is still far away) and they have ended up agreeing with the American populist.
The allies of the Alliance and also the organization itself have become fundamental support for Ukraine to stop the Russian invasion, which has already reached its thousand-day mark. However, Trump has maintained a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and there is a shadow that he may seek a way out of the war without relying on the rest of his allies or cut back support for kyiv at a dramatic moment, when the invader is advancing on the front and has even used .
