President Trump And NATO Sec.-Gen. Mark Rutte Meet Publicly At 2025 NATO Summit

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Earlier today, President Trump met with NATO Secretary General. Mark Rutte at the 2025 NATO Summit.

Transcript

00:00They travel. They have better seats than I do.

00:05What are you telling your time, Mr. about your goals for NATO and Article 5 today?

00:11We're with them all the way. I mean, if you take a look at the numbers, we're with them,

00:15and they're very big things to announce today. I don't know if you've taken the vote or you're

00:18going to take the vote, but I've been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years,

00:23and they're going up to 5%, and that's a big, from 2%, and a lot of people didn't even pay

00:30the 2%, so I think that's going to be very big news. NATO's going to become very strong

00:36with us, and I appreciate doing it. Perhaps you want to talk about it?

00:40Yeah, absolutely. Let me first, before we go to spending, I just want to recognize your

00:45decisive action on Iran.

00:48You are a man of strength, but you're also a man of peace, and the fact that you are now

00:53also successful in getting this ceasefire done between Israel and Iran. I really want

00:58to commend you for that. Thank you very much.

01:00And I think this is important for the whole world. Then on spending, it's absolutely true.

01:05I want to state here, without President Trump, this would not have happened. In three stages,

01:10when you became president in 2016, 2017, you forced Europeans and Canadians to pay more.

01:17At this moment, the result of that phase is one trillion extra aggregate defense spending

01:23by the Canadians and the Europeans. Then came phase two, when you became president in January

01:27of last year. Phase two is that all the countries, not yet on 2%, have now committed to the 2%.

01:33This is the old goal from Wales in 2014. Seven were not on 2%. Some were saying somewhere

01:38in the 2030s, now this year, all of them, including Canada, including Italy, including Belgium,

01:43they have all now committed to the 2%. And now comes the big splash. Today, we will decide

01:50to go to 5%. We have to keep ourselves safe from our adversaries, but also because it is

01:55fair to equalize with the United States. With this 5%, the Europeans and the Canadians will

02:02equalize their defense spending with the United States. So this is not about American taxpayers paying

02:08more. This is about Europeans, Canadians paying more. And again, this would not have happened.

02:13I'm really saying this here, and some people might criticize me, but then when I speak with

02:18them, they all say, yes, you're right. This would not have happened if you would not have

02:22been elected in 2016 and re-elected last year and back into office in January. So I want to thank you.

02:28Well, thank you very much. It's a great victory for everybody, I think. And we will be equalized

02:33very shortly, and that's the way it has to be. It's going to be a lot of money, too, a lot

02:37of defense.

02:37It's a trillion.

02:38Yeah. And we have a great relationship, and we've had a great relationship from the beginning.

02:44Highly respected man. And yeah, we appreciate you being here, too, everybody. We really do.

02:50We have a tremendous group of people on my left and a tremendous group of people on my right.

02:54They might be even better than my people. Let's have a fight. Let's figure it out. Anyway,

03:01but we appreciate it. And we've had a tremendous relationship, Mark and I. And we've really

03:07worked on this subject for a long time. When Biden was here, it just died. It just died

03:13like everything else died. And now it's, you're going to take, I guess, a vote today, right?

03:18Absolutely. Today we will decide unanimously to do this. That's my absolute conclusion.

03:22So we can't talk about it until the vote's taken, because sometimes, you know, strange

03:28things happen to us. But I think you're going to get it.

03:30I'm not too worried.

03:31I think you're going to do very well. Everyone's very happy about it. Go ahead. Yes.

03:34President, how is the Iran-Israel ceasefire going, in your opinion?

03:38I think very good. I think very good. Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them,

03:43because they came back. You know, they went out because they felt there was a violation.

03:47And technically they were right, but it just wouldn't have worked out very well.

03:52And they brought the planes back. They had gone on to another journey because there was a little

03:57bit of a violation. And I said, you got to get them back. And they came back and it was a great

04:02thing. And it's going very well.

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