REPLAY: NATO's Rutte and Hegseth Deliver Remarks at NATO Defence Ministers' Meeting

This will be an important meeting because we had a successful summit in The Hague and there is now much more cash on the table. There is firepower coming out of our defence industry which is so important and we are doing everything collectively to keep Ukraine strong. But I particularly want to thank President Trump and you personally for your leadership and the whole team for the fact that NATO is now much stronger, more lethal, but it is also fair because we know that since President Eisenhower there was this constant irritant that yes NATO was there, the US was committed, but also had a clear expectation that EU allies and Canada would step up and we took that historic decision in The Hague thanks to your leadership equalizing defence spending on this side of the pond and in Canada with what the US is spending and I think that's extremely important. And I also want to thank President Trump and you personally again and of course the whole American leadership team for the fact that when it comes to Ukraine you decided to again make sure that they have what they need from the US paid for by allies and that program is now running. Two billion committed so far and today I expect many new announcements of countries who will participate. So all in all we are making great progress. Again thank you so much Pete for everything you are doing. Mark, it's great to see you. Great to be here and Mark mentioned it, firepower. That's what is coming, what we expect and is coming from NATO and it was a historic summit just a couple of months ago brought about by leadership of President Trump to say we need our allies to step up and they did and they have in those commitments. Now those commitments will soon translate into capabilities which is the most important aspect of it and one part of that of course is PEARL is the initiative where European countries buy US weapons, transfer to NATO for the fight in Ukraine to bring peace to that conflict and if there's anything we've learned under President Trump is the active application of peace through strength. You get peace when you are strong, not when you use strong words or wag your finger. You get it when you have strong and real capabilities that adversaries respect and I believe that's what NATO is doing. I believe that's what the PEARL initiative is so our expectation today is that more countries donate even more, that they purchase even more to provide for Ukraine to bring that conflict to a peaceful conclusion. I would also note a historic moment as well for a lot of things to happen given what the President's been able to do in Gaza and throughout the Middle East. I think the world is seeing that we have a peace president who seeks that peace through standing by those that stand with the United States and stand for peace which is what we saw there and I hope we can see in Ukraine. So that's the focus of our efforts. We're going to be strong to bring that about and thanks for having us. See you later today at breakfast.