NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised U.S. leadership under President Donald Trump during remarks with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Alliance’s Defence Ministers meeting on 15 October, according to NATO.
Rutte described the meeting as an important step following the NATO Summit in The Hague, highlighting increases in allied defence spending and industrial output. “There is now much more cash on the table. There is firepower coming out of our defence industry, which is so important, and we are doing everything collectively to keep Ukraine strong,” he said.
The Secretary General credited U.S. leadership for driving a shift toward what he called a “fairer” alliance, referencing the historic burden-sharing reforms agreed at The Hague.
“Since President Eisenhower, there was this constant irritant that yes, NATO was there, the U.S. was committed, but also had a clear expectation that EU Allies and Canada would step up,” Rutte said.
“We took that historic decision in The Hague thanks to your leadership, equalising defence spending on this side of the pond and in Canada with what the U.S. is spending.”
Rutte also thanked Washington for sustaining support to Ukraine through a new funding mechanism under which allied nations reimburse U.S. contributions. “When it comes to Ukraine, you decided to again make sure that they have what they need from the U.S. paid for by Allies, and that programme is now running. Two billion committed so far, and today I expect many new announcements of countries who will participate,” he said.
I know that this job is essentially a mouthpiece for Nato and US since it is the most prominent member, but at least Stoltenberg did it with dignity and professionalism.
I have no idea how Rutte looks at himself in the mirror in the morning. this guy has 0 self respect
Completely agree, though I suspect the EU has told him to arse lick a bit until Europe gets its military in order.
Elliot, I don’t see that the EU gives Rutte his ‘Line to Take’, as he is not their spokesman or employee. Important too to remember that there are 6 European NATO countries that are not in the EU, so the EU is not a shorthand for European NATO (ENATO).
And only 50% of the European nuclear deterrent is EU based, 40% of its SSNs and 33% of its large carrier forces.
Is NATO stronger with Trump making the USA dangerously unpredictable & unreliable for other NATO states? Seems far too close to Russia & hell bent on becoming another authoratarian nightmare given what Trump is doing & saying. Trump prefers the games dictators like Xi & Putin play to retain control rather than actual free democracy. Deplorable he’s trying to charge Bolton for what he himself was found to have done, even more so, in his first term(having secret files at Mar a largo). It is sickening that our leaders have to waste so much time managing this dangerous dunce.
Careful what you wish for if we end up with Fromagist regieme in the UK.
With no written Constitution and a lot of wooly legislation that relies on people in power being sensible the outcomes in the UK could be far, far worse….
Yes it’s what worries me to be honest, it’s actually incredibly difficult to Bend the US system out of shape..is essentially designed to be as resistant to a possible future tyrant as you can possibly make a government. Separation of the elected executive function from 2 equally powerful elected legislative houses. The UK system is essentially dependent on the polical parties providing a check and balance to the executive.. but reform is actually owned by its leader.. so it cannot hold its leader to account…this single fact essentially creates a potential catastrophe hole in the constitution as without direct accountability to the parliamentary party.. you essentially have an leader that is impossible to remove for 5 years.. unless the MPs removes themselves from the party whip and essentially self destruct the party..even this act would have profound constitutional repercussions when you think about it. Personally I think it’s an issue as our constitution is based around political parties that are Unincorporated organisations that all have the ability to remove and change their leaders.. Nigel Farage is the leader of reform until he decided to give the title to a person he chooses.
The traditional solution to that is a vote of no confidence.
Which should then lead to an election.
Bear in mind that when Doris was @ No 10 he was up for constitutional games with proroguing parliament.
The problem with that is essentially the reform MPs who supported the vote of no confidence would be putting their jobs on the line.. where as a party can remove a leader without triggering an election.. it essentially demands people putting the country before self.. and I don’t see many modern politicians doing that.
I disagree.
I profoundly distrust Farage and all those around him.
However, his mostly rag tag bunch of angry men and women are not career politicians. Look at what has happened already he can’t manage a five MP party.
It would be total chaos from the word go.
I suspect the better MP’s might break away and form their own party – Lib Dem Gang of Four style. Others will join conservatives.
It will get messy within six months.
Hi, now yes I agree most are essentially into belief politics,, they are doing it because they believe.. but after 4 years of being an MP in the party of power with all the privilege and power , being on a select committee.. being important.. there is a truth in power corrupts and it does and at that point they will be career politicians . that is why constitutional safeguards are in place and why democracy has generally worked very well. But when you see an issue you should fix it before it becomes a problem.. Im a believer in upstream intervention and preventative maintenance. I would see an easy constitutional change forcing all political parties to be unincorporated organisations with clear published democratic process for removing a leader. Job is done and reform can carry on with the same safeguard in place as all other parties.
Actually political parties have absolutely nothing to do with the British Constitution which does exist and is very effective. People elect representatives many of which follow a political party’s policies however their obligation is to their constrituents so they can and do jump ship and follow their own path.
Also, by accident of history, we have a monarch who can (indeed it is their duty to do so) dismisss a prime minister if he / she feels that person does not have the confidence of parliament. Ultimately the monarch can dismiss parliament and call elections if he / she feels it necessary and call elections. Obviously they would need to be confident they were doing the right thing otherwise a new parliament might well dismess the monarch. Hundreds of years of balancing power has made the unwritten constitution the mother of all parliaments and the best in the world. The US constitution is relatively young and still need some fine tuning.
Errrr right.
Hence all the crisis meeting in The Cabinet Office as to how to deal with a Corbynista regieme when that looked on the cards….
The monarch is advised primarily by ministers and the Privy Council. Note the phrase the Palace uses ‘on the advice of ministers’
The British Constitution is tissue paper if you have a big enough majority.
However, where I do agree with you and you are absolutely right that MPs are elected by constituents and I do foresee lots jumping ship from a Fromage regime quite quickly: forming a splinter and joining the established parties.
It will be a total s**t show that makes the last two governments look competent. Even The Donald has cooled on Fromage and Musk saw through him pretty quickly. Not that I rate Musk’s judgment on politics – maybe rockets and EVs!
Absolutely misinters and the privy council provide advice to the monarch however they do not and cannot make the decision for him/her. It is unheard of for the monarch to not act upon the advice of ministers and/or privy councilors since the time of Charles I however the monarch does retain these powers and whilst parliament is supreme and would win a battle with the monarchy ultimately the monarch’s powers do provide a useful mechanism for a monarch to remove a prime minister who parliament do not support or replace a parliament who do not have the support of the electorate. I do not however think that any monarch will use these powers lightly and certainly not because of disputes between MPs over who is in power. All prime ministers resign if they cannot command a majority in parliament and the monarch would appoint a successor. If a prime monister were appointed who was so arrogant that they refused to resign due to a lack of confidence they would be swiftly dismissed or they could ask the monarch for a general election.
Of course we aren’t stronger. The jury is still out on whether we’ll become stronger because of it. Will E-NATO spend more cash because of Trump, or only because of Putin? It could be argued the frontline countries are spending more because of Putin, and the backrow countries are lying about spending more money because of Trump.
If the USA had the some level of commitment to nato that the mainland EU countries do, like Germany, it wouldn’t exist.
I know that’s not a popular sentiment here, but it’s true. Only 3 legacy NATO countries have never missed spending requirements: US, UK and Greece.
Continental Europe isn’t going to get their military priorities in order. Lip service for 3 more years. A country or two needs to be kicked out of nato to send the message home.
Hungary and Spain would be a good start.
The UK was under 2% until Cameron was sat on.
Agree Hungary is an issue it’s actively antagonistic to a lot of NATOs mission.. Spain is just a bit of a less enthusiastic member because it’s so far away from the main threat but it takes part is not antagonistic.
But say NATO removed Hungary it would be unlikely to happily stay neutral.. through national pride and perceived risk it would align with Russia in a military alliance.. there is a fair chance Russia could then use it as a base for bringing Serbia into the fold.. Ukraine would have a knife in the back and there would be a knife pointed straight at the Balkans.. an unstable region at the best of times that includes NATO members, NATO partners and nations under NATO protection.. essentially a war trigger. Hungary leaving NATO or being forced out of NATO would be a fuse being lit to a possible war.
It’s one of the reasons Russia not fully defeating Ukraine is so important.. if Russia conquer Ukraine amongst many problems a core geopolitical timebomb would be that Hungary would suddenly become the front line of NATO and I’m not sure it would accept that role and instead would leave and declare a friendly neutrality to the Russia, China, Belarus and other power block.. that that point the south western boarder of NATO becomes an area of extreme threat.
Hmme
Spain is an issue as it is in gov to China for ‘investment’ we are dangerously close to that because of our joke grade economic policies.