- Title: Trump arrives in Belgium ahead of NATO leaders meeting
- Date: 24th May 2017
- Summary: TRUMP AND MICHEL STANDING ON RED CARPET PODIUM, FACING MILITARY PATROLS
- Embargoed: 7th June 2017 17:59
- Keywords: plane arrival airport summit NATO Melania Trump US
- Location: STEENOKKERZEEL, BELGIUM
- City: STEENOKKERZEEL, BELGIUM
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0076I76URR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Brussels on Wednesday (May 24) for a NATO meeting choreographed to impress the leader who once 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.
Trump 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).
With no final communiqué and a meeting consisting only of dinner with NATO allies rather than sessions including non-members partners such as Sweden and Ukraine, diplomats say the alliance is playing up the pomp rather than new policies.
The president and his wife, Melania, were greeted on the tarmac of Brussels Military Airport by Belgian prime minister Charles Michel and his partner, Amélie Derbaudrenghien.
Trump is nearing the end of his nine-day overseas trip, his first as president, and on Thursday evening (May 25) will head to a G7 summit in Sicily. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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