President Donald Trump met with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the White House on July 2.
The two leaders had a one-on-one meeting followed by an expanded session with senior officials. Before the meetings, both delivered brief remarks to press gathered in the oval office. Trump said he planned to discuss trade. Rutte said that he planned to discuss jobs and security
“It’s a great honor to have the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,” Trump said. “We’ve worked together and have a very, very close relationship. I think the relationship with the Netherlands has never been better than it is now.”
Trump and Rutte will meet again next week at the NATO summit.
“It’s good to be here,” Rutte said. “And can I add to this—that the relationship between the Netherlands and the United States is over 400 years old. We are allies. We have always been friends, always been friendly, working closely together.”
Rutte pointed out that Dutch investments support 825,000 jobs in the United States and that American investments have resulted in 250,000 jobs in the Netherlands.
“And our aim will be to increase those numbers, to be more successful,” Rutte said.
“And there are so many opportunities between the United States and the Netherlands to do more, both in the area of security as well as in the area of having more jobs and having more trades and more investments,” he added.
Last month, Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch national, was deported to the Netherlands after serving a 30-day prison term. Van der Zwaan is the only person to have been sentenced as a result of an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller looking into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Neither van der Zwaan, nor any of the other people indicted by Mueller, have been charged with crimes related to collusion.
