Comment by j_maffe
3 hours ago
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls
Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
3 hours ago
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls
Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
[1]- NATO Secretary General responsibilities:
"...Above and beyond the role of chair, the Secretary General has the authority to propose items for discussion and use their good offices in case of disputes between member states....
...In order to facilitate this process, the Secretary General maintains direct contact with Heads of State and Government, and Foreign and Defence Ministers in NATO and partner countries...."
[1] - https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure...
And Mark Rutte has been shaping the domestic fiscal debate inside the Netherlands [2]: "...Mark Rutte said the Netherlands must significantly boost defence spending and pointed to Dutch spending on pensions, healthcare and social security, saying only a small fraction of those allocations would strengthen defence..."
[2] - https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-...
And on conspiracy theories - Do you trust the Financieele Dagblad?
https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-e...
> unfounded conspiracy theories
Their sentiment is that Trump intervenes by whining to Mark Rutte, who seems to be the only European Trump is actually willing to listen to, at the expense of course of giving up all his dignity in calling Trump, literally, Daddy [1].
And I would not put it past Trump to do that... I mean, that's what he already did regarding Tiktok.
With Trump nothing is impossible any more, especially if he or someone in his circle stands to make or lose money. And that's the greatest danger in the US turning into a full blown banana republic.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/nato-chief-calls-tr...
So what do you expect the outcome to be if Trump complains to Rutte, who will then do... what exactly? Ask the current PM to do him a favor because of "reasons"? An overwhelming majority of people in the Netherlands oppose selling this company to the US, an overwhelming majority of political parties voted to block the sale and now the secretary of state in charge of this particular department indeed blocked it.
It seems to me that there is no way that Trump could overturn this decision via Rutte that Trump couldn't accomplish on his own by just threatening the Netherlands directly.
Does that sound outlandish to you? It doesn't to me...
It's probably something he would use as 'change' to resolve something unrelated with NATO. Then he can sell how well he's keeping NATO together