President Trump meets with pope, NATO leaders
White House seeks greater effort in fight against Islamic State.
BRUSSELS — The deadly suicide bombing in Britain and threats of more attacks thrust counterterrorism to the top of President Donald Trump’s agenda for talks withNATO leaders here on Thursday, buttressing his bid to enlist the alliance he had called obsolete to join the fight against Islamic State.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters flying with the president to Brussels from Rome, where Trump met Pope Francis earlierWednesday, that the attack in England two days before “is going to strengthen the resolve in this fight against terrorism.”
Tillerson, for his part, said it “would be a really important step” if NATO agreed to formally join the United States and its antiIslamicState coalition fighting in Syria and Iraq.
The U.K. attack, which killed 22 people at a pop concert and was said to be the work of a 22-year-old Britishman whose family is from Libya, also figured in Trump’s brief meeting with the pope at the Vatican.
While the White House had said the president and the pontiff would discuss human trafficking and religious freedom, they ended up having “pretty extensive conversations around extreme terrorist threats and extremism, radicalization of young people,” Tillerson said.
On another issue important to Francis, the Vatican secretary of state separately urged Trump not to abandon the global accord to address climate change that was agreed to in Paris in 2015. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said he and the president remained noncommittal and told the papal envoy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, that the United States must weigh the cost to its economy and job creation of environmental actions to avert global warming.
Soon after his arrival in Belgium and his introduction to its king and prime minister, Trump returned to the subjects of terrorism and the Manchester attack, for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility.
“We are fighting very hard, doing very well under our generals, making tremendous progress,” he said. “But when you see something like what happened a few days ago, you realize how important it is to win this fight. And we will win this fight.”
Skeptical NATO members are eager to assess whether Trump has warmed to the organization after his repeated criticisms during his campaign, when he suggested that the United States, under a Trump administration, might not come to the defense ofNATOallies.
Tillerson saidTrumpwill press his demand that the allied countries spend more on their mutual defense.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg indicated Wednesday that the organization was poised to formally join the effort against Islamic State. One of the main topicswould be “stepping up NATO’s contribution to the fight against terrorism,” he said, adding that the summit “will demonstrate NATO’s ability to change as the world changes.”
In Brussels, Trump will unveil a piece of wreckage from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, which prompted NATO’s first invocation of its mutual defense agreement.
His one-on-one meeting with the pope was “fantastic,” Trump told reporters, adding, “He is something.” Later on Twitter he called it the “honor of a lifetime.”
The two met privately in Francis’ private study at the Apostolic Palace for a halfhour, slightly longer than typical of papal audiences with visiting dignitaries, but shorter than the roughly 50-minute meeting of President Barack Obama and Francis in 2014.
For Trump and Francis, their meeting was an icebreaker after their public spat during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Francis called Trump’s proposed border fence “not Christian” and Trump dismissed thepope’sput-down as “disgraceful.”
Observers described the mood as stiff, with Francis stone-faced, until he and the president exchanged gifts.
Trumpgave Francis, who is said to appreciate simple gifts, a custom-bound firstedition set of the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King in a handmadedisplay case. The White House noted that Francis had quoted the civil rights leader during an address to a joint session of Congress in 2015— the first ever by a pope. Francis gave the president a large medal by a Roman artist featuring an olive branch, a symbol of peace.
“We can use peace,” president responded.
Also among Francis’ gifts was a copy of three papal encyclicals including Laudato Si, which advocates a moral case for addressing climate change.
“I signed it personally for you,” Francis said. the