Trump gets the royal treatment in Brussels, a city he once branded a ‘hellhole’
Ahead of potentially tense meetings with Nato, US President Trump arrived Wednesday in Brussels, the city that serves as the headquarters the historic US-European military alliance, and which Trump once described as a “hellhole” because of its immigration and refugee policies.
After a brief arrival ceremony at the Brussels airport, the president headed for a photo opportunity with the king and queen of Belgium and a bilateral meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel that included a discussion of counterterrorism in the wake of Monday’s bombing at a concert in Manchester, England, for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility.
“We are fighting very hard, doing very well under our generals, making tremendous progress,” Trump told Michel. “But when you see something like what happened a few days ago you realise how important it is to win this fight. And we will win this fight.”
Trump has had harsh things to say about Brussels in the past, criticising it and other European cities over immigration policies that he says welcome too many poor Muslims and refugees. In a 2016 interview with Fox Business Network, Trump said: “You go to Brussels – I was in Brussels a long time ago, 20 years ago, so beautiful, everything is so beautiful – it’s like living in a hellhole right now.“
