US President-elect Donald Trump and the head of Nato have met for talks on global security, the military alliance said.
In a brief statement, Nato said Mr Trump and its secretary general, Mark Rutte, met on Friday in Palm Beach, Florida.
“They discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance,” the statement said without giving details.
It appeared to be Mr Rutte’s first meeting with Mr Trump since his November 5 election.
Mr Rutte had previously congratulated Mr Trump and said “his leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong” and that he looked forward to working with him.
Mr Trump has for years expressed scepticism about the Western alliance and complained about the defence spending of many of its member nations, which he regarded as too low.
He depicted Nato allies as leeches on the US military and openly questioned the value of the alliance that has defined American foreign policy for decades.
He threatened not to defend Nato members that fail to meet defence-spending goals.
Mr Rutte and his team also met Mr Trump’s pick as national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and other members of the president-elect’s national security team, the Nato statement said.
Mr Rutte took over at the helm of Nato in October.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel