By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Humeyra Pamuk and Sabine Siebold<\/p>\n
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) – NATO leaders unveiled arms deals worth tens of billions of dollars in Turkey on Tuesday, driving home the message that they are heeding U.S. calls to spend more to defend Europe even as President Donald Trump said he felt let \u200cdown.<\/p>\n
Leaders were convening for a summit in the capital Ankara, hoping to project unity after another bruising year, in which the Iran war once again exposed cracks \u200cin the alliance that has underpinned Western security since the end of World War Two.<\/p>\n
In a meeting with President Tayyip Erdogan, Trump said he might have boycotted the NATO summit altogether had it not been for his warm \u200brelations with the Turkish leader, and did not rule out further troop withdrawals from Europe.<\/p>\n
“Well, we’re going to see. I was very disappointed with NATO,” he said, singling out Britain, France, Germany and Italy for not doing enough to support the U.S. war on Iran.<\/p>\n
Trump added that “we weren’t treated well” by the allies, even as he reiterated that he did not want or need their help.<\/p>\n
“Before I asked, they said they wouldn’t be there, and we’ve invested trillions of dollars in NATO,” Trump said.<\/p>\n
Trump said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr \u200cZelenskiy before the summit about ending the war that started in \u2060February 2022 when Russia invaded its neighbour.<\/p>\n
“I think they both want to make a deal. It’s too bad it took so long … Something’s going to come out,” he said.<\/p>\n
While sharply criticising longstanding allies, Trump announced Washington would lift sanctions on Turkey that were imposed in 2020 over Ankara’s \u2060purchase of Russian air defence missiles. He also expressed a willingness to sell Turkey F-35 fighter jets.<\/p>\n
The move would be a major gesture to Erdogan and remove a longstanding irritant in bilateral ties.<\/p>\n
RUTTE WANTS DEFENCE INDUSTRY REVOLUTION<\/p>\n
NATO members have repeatedly tried to show Trump that they are stepping up to the plate.<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday Europeans had made \u201cstaggering\u201d increases in defence spending.<\/p>\n
Before Trump’s arrival, Rutte \u200btrumpeted \u200ba series of initiatives and deals at a defence industry forum, and called for a defence industry “revolution” \u200bacross the alliance, warning over Russia’s massive military spending as well as \u200cChina, North Korea and Iran.<\/p>\n
“We don’t have the luxury of time. We need capabilities now to ensure we remain ready. The security situation demands it,” Rutte said. “The hum of machinery must become a roar.”<\/p>\n
The deals, estimated to be worth at least $50 billion according to one NATO official, included European countries buying surveillance drones from U.S. company Northrop Grumman, and NATO buying planes from Sweden’s Saab.<\/p>\n
Saab shares at one point rose more than 5% as investors bet on the company benefiting from European rearmament. Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock.<\/p>\n
Europe’s defence sector has often been criticised as fragmented and saddled with red tape and rivalries between companies and countries. That has left Europe more reliant on purchases of U.S. weapons.<\/p>\n
Weak economic growth and the need to maintain \u200cgenerous state welfare provisions have also made defence spending a tougher sell in Europe.<\/p>\n
IRAN WAR PROMPTED TRUMP \u200bTO REVIVE CRITICISM OF NATO<\/p>\n
Tensions within NATO, already strained over Ukraine and Trump’s desire to wrest Greenland from \u200bfellow NATO member Denmark, have deepened since the U.S. attacked Iran in February. Trump \u200bhas repeatedly criticised NATO members for insufficient support in the conflict, threatening to quit the alliance.<\/p>\n
European officials insist they largely honoured commitments to let \u200cthe U.S. use their airspace and bases, despite not having been consulted \u200babout a deeply unpopular war that roiled their \u200beconomies.<\/p>\n
The U.S. has also announced troop withdrawals from Europe and launched a six-month review of its military presence there.<\/p>\n
European officials had said they were braced for a repeat of some of Trump\u2019s recent criticism and cannot be sure of a positive outcome, in part due to Trump’s volatile relationship with some leaders, most recently seen in \u200ba feud with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n
NATO members are expected \u200cto reaffirm support for Ukraine, with Zelenskiy urgently calling for more air defence supplies.<\/p>\n
Underscoring the stakes, Russia hammered the Kyiv region with missiles and drones on \u200bMonday, killing at least 28 people and exposing Ukraine’s critical shortage of U.S.-made air-defence interceptors.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8752 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Andrew Gray, Tuvan Gumrukcu, Huseyin Hayatsever, Humeyra Pamuk, \u200bSabine Siebold; Writing by Andrew Gray and Matthias Williams; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Andrei Khalip)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Humeyra Pamuk and Sabine Siebold ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) – NATO leaders unveiled arms deals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1731,14,63,93,243,1457,672,1730],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-arms-deals","tag-defence-industry","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-nato","tag-nato-members","tag-rutte","tag-tayyip-erdogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}