U.S.' Trump to attend first NATO meeting

Record ID: 875719

  • Title: U.S.' Trump to attend first NATO meeting
  • Date: 23rd May 2017
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 18, 2017) (REUTERS) FORMER FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES, PIERRE VIMONT, SAT WORKING AT COMPUTER VIMONT'S FACE (SOUNDBITE) (English) FORMER FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES, PIERRE VIMONT, SAYING: "There is a need for NATO and there is a need I think more than anything else for co-operation between NATO and the European Union, and this is going on, it is improving, there's much more to do. So I think to go on saying that NATO is obsolete seems to be somewhat ignoring what is the reality today, and being a little bit in denial of reality."
  • 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: LVA0046I27YH3
  • 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
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