Ankara's ambiguous outcomes: Trump overwhelms Nato's best intentions

The NATO summit reaffirmed collective defence and support for Ukraine, but Donald Trump's remarks on Spain, Greenland and Iran exposed deep alliance tensions

It speaks volumes for the state of the 77-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) that its 32 members thought it necessary to reaffirm the “ironclad commitment” to collective defence under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which “an attack on one is an attack on all”. This foundational tenet has been under threat, with United States (US) President Donald Trump consistently deriding the adequacy of European defence spending and the value of the alliance. If the latest two-day summit in the 1,150-room Bestepe presidential complex in Ankara, Turkiye — home to Nato’s largest active military — sought to underline anything, it was the European and Canadian allies’ resolve to strengthen their commitments to countering threats from Russia. Unsurprisingly, defence budgets and support for Ukraine topped the official agenda. 

The alliance last year had raised investment in core defence requirements by more than $139 billion. In Ankara, the alliance announced a further $50 billion in new procurement of a range of equipment from European and US manufacturers — such as early warning systems from Sweden’s Saab, surveillance aircraft from Northrop Grumman, a military-transport vehicle fleet from Airbus, and missile deals with Lockheed Martin. The alliance also pledged $70 billion in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine, a non-Nato member, in its war against Russia. For all that, only five Nato members are projected to meet the alliance’s goal, set at the Hague summit last year, of 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on core defence, up from the previous goal of 2 per cent. These expenditures are mostly by countries vulnerable to Russian aggression — Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Greece. The Big Three — Germany, the United Kingdom, and France — will continue to spend slightly over the historic 2 per cent target. The US is estimated to be spending 3.17 per cent, and shares with Germany the largest proportion of Nato’s direct funding (roughly 14 per cent each). 

None of this calibrated messaging appeared to have an effect on Mr Trump, whose erratic performance has only accentuated uncertainty over US intentions. The only gainer was Ukraine, with Mr Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy setting aside earlier acrimony to sign an agreement extending the right to produce the expensive Patriot missile systems to Kyiv. But even as the US President hailed the summit as a “tremendous success” that yielded “a lot of unity”, he reiterated US designs on the Danish territory of Greenland and ordered an immediate halt to trade with Spain (“a terrible partner”) over defence spending and the war in West Asia. 

Inevitably, the region loomed over the summit as a point of contention, with Spain closing its airspace to US military aircraft for operations against Iran, and Italy denying the US permission to use a Sicilian airbase for West Asian deployment (for which relations with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are in meltdown). It is notable that Mr Trump chose the summit to end the truce and announce the launch of dozens of strikes on Iran on July 8 in apparent retaliation for Iranian strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The attacks have increased uncertainty for the global economy, leading to higher prices of crude oil and sharp cuts in stock prices. The Ankara summit, thus, ended with mixed messages. Nothing exemplifies this better than the fact that the next summit, originally scheduled to be held in Albania, is in doubt owing to US objections over its low defence spending. No mention of the country or a date was there in the Ankara Summit Declaration.