NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has been in Washington the past two days where he met with President Trump on Wednesday, gave media interviews, and then delivered a speech at the Atlantic Council yesterday.
At the Atlantic Council, Rutte said NATO allies will be announciing tens of billions of dollars in defense-related deals at NATO’s annual summit set for July 6-7 in Ankara, Turkiye, and will also underscore their commitment to defense spending goals and reaffirm their support for Ukraine, reported Reuters. The gathering, he said, would send a strong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the 32-member alliance is ready to respond to any “silly move against us.”
Rutte claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not afraid of commitments, he is afraid of (us) implementing commitments, and that’s exactly what we are doing, Vladimir. We will defend ourselves.”
While he expressed pride in the “progress” that NATO members have made in increasing defense spending towards the 5 percent of GDP goal, he said allies still need to boost defense industrial production on both sides of the Atlantic, overcome “fragmented national defense industries” in Europe, reduce bureaucracy in Washington and boost innovation. The prospects for achieving those goals “are plentiful” and tens of billions of dollars in new defense-related contracts will be announced at the summit, Rutte said.
“The result is not only improved security. We are in the early stages of a defense industrial revolution that will help grow our economies” and support hundreds of thousands of jobs, he claimed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will attend the NATO summit.
