BRUSSELS: Nato chief Mark Rutte held talks with US president-elect Donald Trump in Florida on the “global security issues facing the alliance”, a spokeswoman said on Saturday.

“They discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance,” spokesperson, Farah Dakhlallah, said in a brief statement. The meeting took place on Friday in Palm Beach, spokesperson said.

In his first term Trump aggressively pushed Europe to step up defence spending and questioned the fairness of the Nato transatlantic alliance. The former Dutch prime minister had said he wanted to meet Trump two days after Trump was elected on Nov 5, and discuss the threat of increasingly warming ties between North Korea and Russia. Trump’s thumping victory to return to the US presidency has set nerves jangling in Europe that he could pull the plug on vital Washington military aid for Ukraine.

Nato allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security. “What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte said recently at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.

“At the same time, Russia has to pay for this, and one of the things they are doing is delivering technology to North Korea”, which he warned was threatening to the “mainland of the US (and) continental Europe”. “I look forward to sitting down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.

On Friday, Nato did not respond to requests for comment on Dutch media reports that Rutte — a former prime minister of the Netherlands — had flown to Florida on a Dutch government plane to meet Trump. Rutte was widely regarded as one of the best European leaders at forging a good working relationship with Trump during his first, 2017-21 term as US president.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2024