NATO Chief to Urge European Firms to Boost Defense Production

LONDON, May 16. /TASS/. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte plans to put pressure on European defense corporations and agencies at a meeting in Brussels, persuading them to boost production to please US President Donald Trump, the Financial Times reported.

"The secretary-general regularly meets with industry and financial institutions from across the alliance to encourage increased production, innovation and investment to meet our capability needs," a NATO official said.

According to the newspaper, the North Atlantic Alliance is interested in European industry helping to meet Washington's demands for increased defense spending to mitigate Trump's "anger" at the alleged inability of allies to support the United States in the conflict in the Middle East.

The newspaper reported that Rheinmetall, Safran, Airbus, Saab, MBDA and Leonardo representatives will be present at the meeting. In addition to increasing the number of factories and personnel to ramp up productivity, special attention will be paid to discussing issues of air defense and long-range missiles.

On April 1, in an interview with Reuters, Trump said he felt disgusted with NATO and was considering withdrawing the United States from the alliance. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Trump explained that he was considering reviewing the United States' participation in NATO, since the alliance did not support Washington in the war with Tehran. He also called NATO a "paper tiger" and admitted that he had never had much sympathy for the organization.