Trump Undermines NATO at Ankara Summit
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- Trump scolded Britain, France, Germany and Belgium for not supporting the U.S. in the war in Iran and called Spaniards 'hopeless, bad people,' demanding an immediate halt to all trade with Spain.
- Trump reiterated his claim that Greenland should be part of the U.S., stating it was 'very important' for America but not for Denmark, during and after the NATO summit in Ankara.
- NATO leaders ended the Ankara summit without reaffirming their planned 2027 meeting in Albania, signaling diminished confidence in the value of annual summits under Trump’s presidency.
- Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, made repeated efforts to appease Trump, including Oval Office presentations and diplomatic trips, to preserve alliance cohesion amid U.S. threats to withdraw.
- The Ankara Summit Declaration was a one-page, six-paragraph statement of boilerplate language, lacking substantive decisions or new strategic direction, unlike prior summits in Madrid, Vilnius, and The Hague.
- European allies missed an opportunity to create a roadmap for Europe to assume core NATO defense responsibilities, despite growing recognition that the U.S. is no longer a reliable security guarantor.
Why it matters: The U.S. withdrawal from reliable alliance leadership under Trump forces Europe to confront its defense dependency now, not later. With no concrete agenda and summits losing purpose, NATO risks institutional irrelevance just as strategic threats intensify, raising the cost of inaction for European security.
