Mark Rutte, incoming Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), during a transition ceremony at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, October 1, 2024. Mark Rutte, suave and meticulous former Dutch Prime Minister It is a daunting task ahead of us to preserve the defense alliance As a global power.
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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump’s warning on Wednesday that Russia could expect more tariffs and sanctions if it does not end the war in Ukraine.
“I was very happy with Trump’s position of imposing more sanctions on Russia. We know that the Russian economy is doing very poorly, and sanctions will help,” he told CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Conference. Davos Forum, Switzerland.
He expressed hope that Europe would now also “escalate” sanctions in an attempt to “stifle the Russian economy” and reduce Moscow’s war coffers.
“Trump is right, Ukraine is closer to Europe, but Trump is also right that this is a geopolitical conflict, so I’m sure the United States wants it to end with a good, strong agreement,” Rutte added.
Trump said Wednesday that if an agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine war is not reached soon, the United States will have “no other choice but to impose high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything Russia sells to the United States.” And many other participating countries.”
Trump said: “Let’s end this war, which would never have started if I were president!” On the social truth platform. “We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way – and the easy way is always better.”
Trump has previously bragged that he is able to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” of his election, as well as threatening to cut off military funding for Kiev. Fears have increased in Europe that financially and weapons-deprived Ukraine could be pushed into a bad peace agreement that includes territorial concessions to Russia.
Rutte said the outcome of any peace deal must be “sustainable,” noting that Russia’s allies, including China and North Korea, would celebrate otherwise.
“We have to get to a situation where Russia will never again try to seize a single square kilometer of Ukraine, so the agreement must be strong,” Rutte said.
February marks the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, and while war fatigue has grown among some allies, the war shows no sign of ending soon with Russia seeking to make gains and Ukraine preventing further territorial losses, ahead of any potential peace talks.
When asked about his current assessment of the war between Ukraine and Russia, NATO Secretary General Rutte said: “At the moment, the war is not moving in the right direction.”
He added, “At the moment (the war) is not moving in the right direction. (The front lines) must move east and move west… We have to change that, we have to change the course of the war.” He said.
Defense spending
Trump’s relationship with the Western military alliance was tense during his first presidency, with the Republican leader often criticizing NATO member states for not adhering to a 2014 goal of spending at least 2% of gross domestic product on defense each year.
Ahead of his second term in office, Trump has signaled that the thorny debate over military spending — and Trump’s perception that NATO members are overly dependent on the United States for their security — will return to the agenda, stating in January that NATO’s 32 members and nations should Contribute more to the field of defence.
He added: “I think NATO should have 5% (as a target).” “They can all afford it, but the interest rate should be 5%, not 2%,” he told a news conference.
US President Donald Trump arrives for the NATO summit at the Grove Hotel in Watford, north-east London, on December 4, 2019.
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Rutte said he agreed with Trump’s call for increased defense spending among NATO members, saying that countries that have not yet reached the 2% target, such as Spain, Italy and Canada, “have to reach 2% in the coming months. It will happen this year.”
“Fortunately, thanks to Trump in his first term, we boosted defense spending… but we all have to reach 2%,” he said, adding that Europe also needs to strengthen its defense industrial base.
Rutte himself has faced criticism over why Dutch defense spending was consistently below the NATO target (2%) most of the time when he was the country’s prime minister. Alliance data It shows that Dutch defense spending was below the NATO target for 2014-2023, but is estimated to reach 2.05% of the country’s GDP in 2024.
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