- Title: U.S.' Trump to attend first NATO meeting
- Date: 23rd May 2017
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 18, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) FORMER FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES, PIERRE VIMONT, SAYING: "You know, everybody agrees and everybody knows in Europe that what this current U.S. administration is calling for, the need for the Europeans to increase their defence spending, is right. They should do more efforts and they know they have to do it. By the way, they have committed themselves to this."
- Embargoed: 6th June 2017 14:21
- Keywords: Europe Obama Belgium Headquarters Brussels visit NATO Carnegie Trump
- Location: JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND AND WASHINGTON D.C, UNITED STATES / BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
- City: JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND AND WASHINGTON D.C, UNITED STATES / BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: NATO,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0066I27YH3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Ribbon-cutting, jets overhead and a dinner in a new, billion-dollar headquarters: Donald Trump's first meeting at NATO on Thursday (May 25) is choreographed to impress a U.S. president who called the Western alliance "obsolete."
In a fortuitous twist, a series of NATO goals including a new HQ and expansion to include new member Montenegro have coalesced around Trump's visit, which officials have kept free from the dense policy debates of their biennial summits.
In that vein, Trump, a New Yorker, is expected to unveil a memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, placed at the entrance to the new NATO building that has been almost two decades in the making at a cost of 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion).
NATO officials hope the steel wreckage from one of the Twin Towers will remind Trump that the only time the alliance has activated its collective defense clause was following the attacks on New York and Washington, a decision that also sent NATO into Afghanistan to fight the militants behind them. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
