Donald in ‘tough’ NATO & EU talks
US President Donald Trump pressed nervous allies on Thursday to do more on terrorism after the Manchester bombing as he met EU and NATO leaders for the first time.
Trump faced protests on his arrival in Brussels but he is getting a red-carpet welcome from Western allies eager to persuade him that his earlier harsh criticisms of them were misplaced.
Despite Trump having backed Britain’s Brexit vote last year, it was all smiles at the headquarters of the European Union as Trump met the bloc’s top two officials, Donald Tusk and JeanClaude Juncker.
“I’ll aim to convince POTUS that euro-atlanticism means the free world co-operating to prevent (a) post-West world order,” European Council chief Tusk, a former Polish premier, tweeted before the meeting.
Trump’s focus is however on terrorism, with the deadly attack on a pop concert in Manchester, England this week adding to the urgency of his calls for NATO to step up the fight against the jihadis.
“When you see something like what happened a few days ago you realise how important it is to win this fight. And we will win this fight,” said Trump on Wednesday after meeting Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, whose own country suffered Islamic State suicide attacks in March 2016.
The NATO military alliance, which Trump on the campaign trail dismissed as “obsolete” for focusing on Russia instead of terrorism, is set to bow to his demands that it formally join the USled coalition against IS.
“This will send a strong political message of NATO’s commitment to the fight against terrorism,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of Trump’s meeting with the alliance’s other 27 leaders.
France, Germany and Italy dropped their objections so long as it was made clear that the alliance would have no combat role, with NATO only providing increased AWACS surveillance planes, support and training.
In return they are hoping for a public display of commitment from Trump to Article 5, the alliance’s one-forall collective defence pledge. Trump had suggested this could depend on when allies paid their dues.
Trump’s entourage warned that the billionaire president would push allies heavily on meeting their commitment to spend 2.0% of GDP on defence, agreed in 2014.
“I think you can expect the president to be very tough on them,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters travelling with Trump.
But Trump is set to face pressure from British Prime Minister Theresa May over leaks to the US media of details of the probe into the Manchester attack.
British police said the leaks have “undermined” the investigation.
Brussels could be the toughest leg yet of what has so far been a largely troublefree first foreign trip for Trump, who came direct from a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, and previously visited Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.