President Donald Trump will meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte this week, a meeting that comes in the wake of Trump’s announced plan to sell weapons and ammunition to NATO, which would go on to sell and transfer these to Ukraine.
According to an announcement by NATO on Sunday, Rutte will be in Washington, D.C., on July 14, where he'll meet with Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and select members of the U.S. Congress.
Speaking about the upcoming meeting to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said, “I’m gonna have a meeting with the Secretary General who’s coming in tomorrow. But we basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military [equipment] and they’re gonna pay us 100 percent for them.”
“We’re going to send them Patriots [missiles], which they desperately need,” Trump said.
Later, Trump added that he hasn’t “agreed on a number yet, but they’re going to have some because they do need protection, but the European Union is paying for it. We’re not paying anything for it, but we will send it.”
The meeting comes as Trump has expressed escalating frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he’s accused of being uninterested in securing a peace deal to end the conflict.
Trump said Sunday he was “very disappointed” with Putin.
“I thought he was somebody that meant what he said. And he‘ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s allies in Congress known for his hawkish stance towards Russia and the Russo–Ukrainian War, was thrilled about the news, saying that the idea of the U.S. selling weapons to Ukraine is “very much in play.”
“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” he said during the same appearance.
“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100 percent,” he said. “So what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and NATO is paying for those weapons.”
Trump said the deal was finalized during the NATO summit last month.
The U.S. president also said he plans to make a major statement about Russia on July 14, the same day as his announced visit with Rutte.
After an initial promise to end the war within 24 hours of being elected president in 2024, Trump has indicated that his frustration with Putin has only grown as the Russian president has seemed unwilling to work towards a solution to the conflict, which began in February 2022.
On July 3, Trump told reporters that he “didn’t make any progress with [Putin]” during a call between the two.
Last week, Trump also accused Putin of conveying empty rhetoric in peace talks.
“We get a lot of [expletive] thrown at us by Putin, [if] you want to know the truth,” Trump said at a July 8 Cabinet meeting. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Rubio also held a surprise meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on July 10. After the meeting, he conveyed Trump’s growing frustration with the lack of progress in negotiations with Russia.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, Rubio described his Thursday meeting with Lavrov as a “frank conversation.”
“I echoed what the president has said, of both a disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks or in a path forward,” Rubio said.
