Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a surprise meeting between NATO chief Mark Rutte and U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli efforts to annex West Bank settlements, and North Korea’s weapons posturing.
NATO’s Flattery Game
NATO chief Mark Rutte traveled to Washington for a last-minute meeting on Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump, just a day after a planned Budapest summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin fell through. According to NATO spokesperson Allison Hart, the purpose of the meeting is to “discuss Ukraine, both NATO’s support as well the president’s efforts to bring the war to a just and lasting end.”
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a surprise meeting between NATO chief Mark Rutte and U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli efforts to annex West Bank settlements, and North Korea’s weapons posturing.
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NATO’s Flattery Game
NATO chief Mark Rutte traveled to Washington for a last-minute meeting on Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump, just a day after a planned Budapest summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin fell through. According to NATO spokesperson Allison Hart, the purpose of the meeting is to “discuss Ukraine, both NATO’s support as well the president’s efforts to bring the war to a just and lasting end.”
Ahead of Rutte’s sit-down with Trump, the NATO leader brushed off concerns about his trip to Washington. He said the meeting should not be interpreted as a signal of anxiety after Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday ended with no tangible peace progress. Instead, Rutte characterized that discussion as a success, despite Zelensky not receiving the long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that Trump had once considered selling to Kyiv.
Rutte also showered Trump with praise, mirroring past comments that stoked the U.S. president’s ego. “He’s the only one who can get this done,” Rutte said of Trump on Wednesday. This is their fourth meeting since the start of Trump’s second term; Rutte last visited the White House in August alongside Zelensky and six other European leaders.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Rutte is expected to present a 12-point European- and Ukrainian-backed peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war. This proposal would have current battle lines be the starting point for future negotiations and would have Trump chair a peace board that would oversee the deal’s implementation.
As part of the plan, Russia and Ukraine would exchange prisoners of war, and all kidnapped Ukrainian children would be returned. Kyiv would be promised security guarantees to prevent future Russian aggression, receive funds to begin reconstruction, and begin the process of joining the European Union. Meanwhile, foreign nations would gradually lift their sanctions on Russia, though some frozen Russian assets would only be returned once Moscow agrees to help fund Ukraine’s rebuilding efforts; these restrictions would snap back if Russia resumed its attack.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already rejected the terms of this deal, though. “If we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood,” he said during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in August.
Rutte also visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with the bipartisan heads of the Senate NATO Observer Group. Rutte discussed with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis three Russia-related bills that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously advanced earlier that day. If passed, these bills would label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism over its abduction of Ukrainian children, repurpose frozen Russian assets held in the United States and transfer them to Ukraine every 90 days, and impose sanctions on China for its support of Moscow’s war machine.
“Since the White House seems to be unwilling to act, I think it’s important for Congress to take some action, and I’m very pleased that for the first time this year, we’re going to have bills that will make it harder for Russia to continue to conduct this war,” Shaheen, the committee’s ranking member, told Axios.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Seeking West Bank control. Israel’s far-right Knesset members passed a preliminary bill on Wednesday that would apply Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements. Another more limited bill annexing a major city settlement was also passed. The bills’ preliminary advancement marks a significant embarrassment for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which had all but one member boycott the votes. Although this highlights a growing rift within Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, experts believe it is unlikely that the bills will pass the three additional votes needed to make them laws.
Far-right Israeli lawmakers have long sought to annex the occupied West Bank and have been accused of inciting Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the area. On Sunday, video footage showed Israelis beating Palestinian civilians with clubs in the town of Turmus Ayya, seriously injuring at least one woman.
The two bills’ initial passage comes as Netanyahu hosted U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior U.S. officials on Wednesday to discuss next steps in maintaining the fragile Gaza cease-fire. Both Netanyahu and Vance stressed that they want their countries to be partners on equal footing. But further annexation moves could jeopardize that friendship, as Trump has said that he “will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.”
Weapons posturing. South Korea’s military accused North Korea on Wednesday of test-firing several short-range ballistic missiles toward the northeast from an area south of Pyongyang. This was North Korea’s first such test since May, and it comes just one week before Trump is expected to separately meet with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Gyeongju, South Korea.
“The United States condemns these actions and calls on [North Korea] to refrain from further unlawful and destabilizing acts,” the U.S. Defense Department said on Wednesday, though it added that Pyongyang’s launches did not threaten U.S. personnel. U.S. officials have reportedly considered having Trump visit the demilitarized zone during the APEC summit and having him meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Pyongyang has not publicly responded to the idea.
Lee took office in June, pledging to work toward restoring peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, experts have warned that Pyongyang could conduct more missile tests during APEC to flex its military muscles and defy United Nations sanctions on its weapons program.
State of emergency. Newly elected Peruvian President José Jerí declared a 30-day state of emergency in the capital city of Lima and the neighboring province of Callao on Tuesday to address a major crime wave that has swept the country. “Wars are won with actions, not words,” Jerí said in a televised address, adding that he plans to move “from defense to offense.” During the next month, Jerí is expected to consider deploying soldiers to help police efforts and to debate restricting citizens’ freedom of assembly and movement.
Peru has long suffered from rising crime rates. Between January and September, Peruvian police reported 1,690 homicides, compared to 1,502 during the same period in 2024. Former President Dina Boluarte declared a similar 30-day state of emergency in March to try and reduce crime, including public killings and attacks, but it ultimately failed to make a difference. Boluarte was impeached on Oct. 10 via a unanimous vote after lawmakers accused her of being unable to adequately address nationwide violence.
Last week, Jerí appointed a new cabinet that he said would make tackling crime a top priority. However, also last week, widespread Generation Z-led protests calling for Jerí’s resignation left at least one protester dead and injured more than 100 people, including around 80 police officers and 10 journalists.
Odds and Ends
Fans of heist movies must be enthralled with this week’s ongoing news. First came the Louvre theft on Sunday. Two days later, Parisian authorities charged a thief who allegedly stole from Paris’s Natural History Museum. Now, that trend has moved to Spain, where local police arrested seven people on Wednesday accused of stealing more than 1,100 chairs from outdoor seating areas at 18 different restaurants and bars in Madrid and another nearby municipality. The stolen property, estimated to cost $69,000, was resold in Spain, Romania, and Morocco.
