NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is set to hold a high-stakes, comprehensive summit with the chief executives of Europe’s leading defense corporations next week, moving swiftly to accelerate arms production across the continent. According to Financial Times, the Brussels meeting will bring together the heads of Europe’s largest weapons manufacturers – including Rheinmetall, Safran, Airbus, Saab, MBDA, and Leonardo.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. While Rutte routinely communicates with individual industry leaders, diplomats noted that a collective, industrial assembly of this magnitude is highly unusual and reflects an escalating sense of geopolitical urgency. Fulfilling the Trump blueprint The primary catalyst for the meeting is the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, scheduled for July. The alliance is working under immense pressure to finalize concrete weapons procurement packages before arriving in Ankara, primarily to address intense criticism from US President Donald Trump. At last year’s NATO summit in open defiance of traditional budgets, alliance members bowed to Trump’s demands, agreeing to elevate defense spending targets to an unprecedented 5% of individual member GDP. Sources close to the planning told reporters that by focusing the Ankara summit tightly on localized multi-billion-dollar arms procurement deals, European leaders hope to “allow Trump to take the credit” for forcing Europe to pay for its own security, potentially mending frayed transatlantic ties.