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It’s a great honour to be with you tonight.
To mark 250 years of a great nation.
A nation that has long been an inspiration – and an aspiration.
What one of your great leaders, President Ronald Reagan, called the shining city upon a hill.
As I’m sure you can hear from my accent, I am not American. I am Dutch. But for me and for countless others – that’s what America is and has always been. A beacon. A guide.
As early as the 19th century, that beacon drew some of my own family members away from their home in the Netherlands to the promise of distant shores.
From my earliest childhood, I felt a strong attachment to the United States. Across my time in government and at NATO, that attachment has only grown stronger.
America is an idea made manifest.
That freedom matters.
That freedom is worth fighting for.
It is an idea – and an ideal – that inspires hope.
An idea – and an ideal – that is the foundation of the NATO Alliance – which I have the honour of supporting as Secretary General.
That ideal is what our transatlantic bond is built on.
And those roots run deep.
We came together in NATO around that ideal in 1949, as the world was recovering from a fundamental fight against fascism.
And as another fundamental fight against communism loomed.
Freedom had won – thanks in large part to the leadership of your great nation.
But we knew that freedom was fragile.
We agreed it was worth fighting for.
And we understood that coming together would bring advantage to that fight.
That is the ideal on which NATO was founded.
Bringing then 12 nations together in common cause.
And it worked.
Through the dark decades of the Cold War, we stood united.
And again, freedom won.
The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain came down.
Many who had fought for freedom from the other side forged a path to the door we had always held open.
The project persisted.
Making manifest our shared ideal for all 32 nations who now comprise the NATO Alliance.
Today we stand together, bound by the same fierce fealty to freedom that we are celebrating tonight.
Freedom matters.
Freedom is worth fighting for.
Together, as friends and allies, we continue in that common cause.
All thanks to the idea made manifest that is America.
So, as we mark 250 years of that shining city upon a hill, I want to wish America a very happy birthday.
Shine on.
Related assets
NATO Secretary General participates in the celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America
