President-elect Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte discussed global security issues while meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday. Photo by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Nov. 23 (UPI) — NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met with President-elect Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., to discuss global security issues.
Rutte also met Friday with Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., whom Trump has nominated as his national security adviser, and members of Trump’s incoming national security team, NATO announced in a brief press release Saturday.
Trump and Rutte “discussed the range of global security issues facing the alliance,” NATO officials said.
Rutte is new to his post and became NATO secretary general in October.
Rutte on Nov. 6 congratulated Trump on his presidential election win over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“His leadership will again be key to keeping our alliance strong,” Rutte said in a post on X. “I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength.”
The meeting with Trump and others came after Trump for years has criticized NATO member nations as being too dependent upon the U.S. military and U.S. funding of NATO.
Trump has called on other NATO members to do more to fund the Western alliance and threatened to not defend NATO members that do not achieve respective 2% spending goals for defense.
Trump’s pending presidency has raised concerns in Ukraine and its efforts to defeat Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump has said Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin can do “whatever the hell they want” to nations that don’t meet NATO’s criteria of 2% national defense spending.