{"id":6928,"date":"2026-07-07T20:15:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/6928\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T20:15:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:15:51","slug":"trump-lashes-out-at-nato-as-first-day-of-summit-wraps-in-turkiye-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/6928\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump lashes out at NATO as first day of summit wraps in Turkiye | Politics News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leaders have gathered in Ankara for a two-day summit slated to cover defence spending and the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

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Published On 7 Jul 20267 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

United States President Donald Trump has declared he is \u201cvery disappointed with NATO\u201d on the first day of a summit of leaders of the mutual defence alliance in Turkiye that exposed tensions over European defence spending, the Russia-Ukraine war and the future of Greenland.<\/p>\n

Trump arrived in Ankara on Tuesday for the summit along with other NATO leaders. The main session will be on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The summit comes at a fragile time for the 77-year-old alliance, which has seen Trump sow discord over Iran, Greenland and Washington\u2019s commitment to protecting fellow members.<\/p>\n

After criticising NATO allies during a news conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump said that if the summit \u201cweren\u2019t held in Turkiye, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it\u2019s possible that I wouldn\u2019t have attended\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump also named European allies who he perceived as unsupportive during the US-Israel war on Iran, saying, \u201cWe weren\u2019t treated well because we did something in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars when they\u2019re not there for us? We\u2019ve always been there for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cItaly turned us down, and Germany turned us down, and France turned us down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has also ramped up pressure<\/a> on European members to increase their defence budgets.<\/p>\n

Just five NATO members are projected to meet the alliance\u2019s goal of spending 3.5 percent of their gross domestic product on core defence in 2026, according to updated NATO data published before the summit.<\/p>\n

The data showed some members are still expected to spend only about 2 percent.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not for sale\u2019<\/p>\n

The US president also reignited tensions over Greenland, saying the territory \u201cshould be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark\u201d.<\/p>\n

For months, Trump has insisted<\/a> that taking control of the autonomous Danish territory was crucial to US security.<\/p>\n

Danish \u2060Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the summit she expects allies \u2060to respect Denmark\u2019s sovereignty and accept that Greenland is \u200cnot for sale.<\/p>\n

Russia-Ukraine war<\/p>\n

Also on the summit\u2019s agenda is NATO\u2019s military support for Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urges the alliance to step up aid for the country\u2019s air defences.<\/p>\n

Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the NATO gathering and is expected to meet Zelenskyy on the summit sidelines on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Asked about Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, Trump said he hoped it would be settled \u201csoon\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they both want to make a deal,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt\u2019s too bad it took so long, but I think something\u2019s going to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norway says it would provide three billion Norwegian crowns ($306.2m) for Ukraine\u2019s air defence, specifically to protect against ballistic missiles, while Europe and Canada are expected to pledge to keep military support flowing to Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 at the summit.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy, for his part, has renewed his call for Ukraine to be allowed to join the alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you really believe it would be right to leave outside NATO a country and a people with this level of defensive capability?\u201d the Ukrainian president said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leaders have gathered in Ankara for a two-day summit slated to cover defence spending and the Russia-Ukraine war.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,47,158,7,54,50,466,39,49,1464],"class_list":["post-6928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada","tag-europe","tag-middle-east","tag-nato","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-turkey","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}