2024-07-10 13:56:16
Several senior European officials met with a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump at this week’s NATO summit in Washington, amid preparations by US allies for the former president’s possible re-election in November’s elections , reported Reuters.
Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served as Trump’s National Security Council chief of staff, told Reuters he had met with several European officials in recent days, including several foreign ministers. He did not reveal the identities of the foreign officials or what was discussed during their conversations.
Kellogg, who is in regular contact with Trump, stressed that he was not speaking for the former president or his campaign.
Still, European officials are looking for any information they can get on Trump’s foreign policy should he defeat Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election. In recent months, foreign diplomats have met several times with representatives of Trump’s administration from his term as president (2017-2021), Reuters notes.
Among the main concerns of European leaders is how Trump will handle the war in Ukraine, as well as Washington’s relationship with NATO. The former president and his allies have expressed skepticism about sending more aid to Ukraine, and Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries for spending too little on defense.
Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate late last month appears to have boosted Trump’s chances of victory. The former president leads Biden by 2.1 percent nationally, according to an average of polls maintained by the FiveThirtyEight website, while Biden enjoyed a narrow lead before the debate.
Although Kellogg did not disclose who he met with, on Monday he posted footage on the X platform of what he described as an “informal discussion” with Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.
In June, Kellogg, along with another Trump adviser, presented the former president with a plan to end the war in Ukraine, in part by making any future aid to Kiev conditional on Ukrainian leaders agreeing to sit down for peace talks with Moscow.
Three other former Trump foreign policy officials told Reuters they had been approached by European delegations for talks at the NATO summit, but those talks did not take place, mostly for logistical reasons. The European representatives have requested anonymity.
Separately, the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, met with Richard Grenell, former acting Director of National Intelligence under Trump, shows a photo posted on Mickoski’s Facebook account.