March 13 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte met Thursday to discuss current events affecting the United States and NATO, including the war in Ukraine.
The meeting occurred during a closed-door strategic luncheon that began at 12:35 p.m. EDT at the White House as Rutte seeks to keep the United States as an active member of NATO.
Rutte is scrambling to keep NATO intact as officials in France and the United Kingdom have approached Trump directly to make respective defense agreements, Politico reported.
“The real challenge for [Rutte] now is to become the Trump whisperer and make sure that President Trump and America stay involved in NATO,” said Geidrimas Jeglinskas, former NATO official and current chairman of the Lithuania National Security and Defense Committee.
Trump has demanded European nations contribute more financially to NATO instead of requiring the United States to continue paying nearly twice as much as all other member states combined.
Trump wants all NATO member states to contribute up to 5% of their gross domestic product instead of relying on the United States to continue supplying a large majority of NATO funding.
The meeting between Rutte and Trump also comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed in principle to a 30-day cease-fire in Ukraine, NewsNation reported.
Officials in Italy, Germany and Poland also are working with France and the United Kingdom to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia and end the three-year war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
NATO military leaders and diplomats of the alliance’s member states outside of the United States are meeting in Paris to discuss matters in Ukraine.
Defense experts for the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Poland also are meeting separately in what former Italina NATO ambassador Stefano Stefanini told Politico could be a “harbinger of this new NATO” alliance.
NATO has existed for eight decades and has changed its mission focus as the geopolitical situation has evolved from the Cold War to securing airspace over Bosnia and Libya.
The new focus is to protect European nations amid Russian aggression in Ukraine that might target other nations, including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as Putin seeks to restore the former Soviet Union territories.
The United States has about 84,000 troops in Europe, but leaders of the European states recognize the need to provide their own defense against Russia and other potential aggressors instead of relying on the United States, Politico reported.