RUTTE: ‘GOOD LUCK’ DEFENDING EUROPE WITHOUT THE U.S.: NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has turned out to be one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders in Europe — is warning European nations that they lack the resources and industrial base to field a military force fully capable of defending the continent. In a speech and Q-and-A session to a pair of European Union committees in Brussels, Rutte laid out a harsh reality to EU lawmakers, warning that their discussion of creating a European army independent of the U.S. is folly.

“If anyone thinks here, again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte said. “We need each other. And why do we need each other? I tell you, first of all, because also the U.S. needs NATO.”