NATO Secretary General Meets President Trump Ahead Of Summit

NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, met with President Trump at the US Official Residence ahead of the NATO Summit on Wednesday. They discussed the summit agenda, including raising readiness, stepping up the fight against terrorism, and fair burden sharing.

During the meeting Stoltenberg said he agreed with Trump that NATO has to make sure that member countries invest more.

“You negotiated last year that all Allies are going to develop national plans on how to spend more on defence, and based on these national plans we now estimate that the European Allies and Canada will add 266 billion extra US dollars for defence from now until 2024. So this is really adding some extra money,” Stoltenberg said. “It helps and we are moving in the right direction but we still have to do more and that is what we are going to address at the Summit later on today. Let me also add that a strong NATO is good for Europe but it’s also good for the United States.”

According to Stoltenberg, the US military presence in Europe helps to protect Europe, but it also helps the United States to project power to the Middle-East, to Africa.

“I think also that the clout, the military clout of Europe, the economical clout, the political clout also is helpful dealing with Russia,” Stoltenberg said, adding, “We look forward to your meeting with President Putin and I think that leaders are also looking forward to your thoughts about your meeting with President Putin.”