{"id":216831,"date":"2026-07-12T15:45:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-allies-apprehensive-after-capricious-trump-changes-tune-at-nato-summit-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T15:45:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:45:57","slug":"us-allies-apprehensive-after-capricious-trump-changes-tune-at-nato-summit-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-allies-apprehensive-after-capricious-trump-changes-tune-at-nato-summit-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US allies apprehensive after capricious Trump changes tune at Nato summit – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sudden shift may be linked to affinity for Erdo\u011fan but what might be consequences of erratic behavior towards alliance?
Donald Trump\u2019s relationship with Washington\u2019s Nato allies is nobody\u2019s idea of a happy marriage.
But the US president\u2019s volatile performance at the western military alliance\u2019s annual summit in Ankara this week seemed extreme, even by Trumpian standards. As commentators sought toexplain what happened, their usually capacious stock of Trump-fitting cliches was at risk of exhaustion.
Trump arrived in the Turkish capital last Tuesday in a spectacular funk, visibly angry that the temporary ceasefire arrangement he had agreed with Iran had failed to hold, and threatening to unleash more destruction and mayhem in consequence.
The country\u2019s Islamic leadership, which he praised as \u201cvery reasonable\u201d just two weeks earlier, were \u201cscum\u201d and \u201csick people\u201d, he told journalists as he sat beside Nato\u2019s secretary general, Mark Rutte.
Just as vehemently, he lashed out at the alliance, which has been the cornerstone of collective western security policy since 1949, when it was founded as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in response to the spread of Soviet communism after the second world war.
Trump was \u201cnot happy with Nato\u201d, he said, complaining about the failure of alliance members \u2013 including Britain \u2013 to help him in the Iran war, rehashing his claims on Greenland despite it being sovereign Danish territory, and demanding the US sever trade ties with Spain because its socialist government (who he denounced as \u201cbad people\u201d) refused to comply with new defence spending targets.
Hours later, he emerged from a meeting \u2013 with the leaders he had just lambasted \u2013 talking about unity. \u201cThere was a lot of love in that room,\u201d Trump said. He had, apparently, never had a Nato meeting that had been so positive.
Trump extended this sudden warmth to Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy \u2013 sitting alongside a leader he has frequently viewed as a b\u00eate noire \u2013 whom he praised him as \u201cingenious\u201d for holding his country together in a war against Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, whose political style and cause Trump has long been assumed to prefer.
Terms such as \u201cmercurial\u201d and \u201cwhiplash\u201d were predictably applied across much of the media to describe the seemingly capricious conduct. Less obvious was its cause, and possible long-term effect.
Why had Trump suddenly changed his tune on an alliance he has frequently derided as a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d, and accused of \u201cripping off\u201d the US by expecting it cover the lion\u2019s share of expenditure? And what might the consequences be of such unpredictable and, by some measures, abusive behavior?
The answers, according to some analysts, range from relatively straightforward to more complicated \u2013 with Trump\u2019s impulsivity, and proclivity to change his mind on a whim, close to the surface of any explanation.
One driver of his sudden shift may have been an affinity for the summit\u2019s host, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan<\/a>, a strongman leader who has held power for 23 years, and for whom Trump has long expressed admiration despite his Islamist political roots.
At a joint press conference with Erdo\u011fan on Tuesday, Trump said he might not have attended the summit if had not been held in Turkey, with which he said he had a \u201cgreat relationship\u201d.
\u201cTurkey has been, in many ways, much more loyal than other countries that we thought would be loyal,\u201d he said, before comparing his bond with Erdo\u011fan glowingly in comparison with other leaders. \u201cYou never know why a relationship is special.
\u201cSometimes you get along with the toughest people, like [Erdo\u011fan]. And sometimes you don\u2019t get along with the weakest most pathetic people, maybe you don\u2019t respect them.\u201d
Ian Lesser, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund who attended the summit, said it had a \u201cbipolar quality\u201d, which he attributed to Trump\u2019s chemistry with Erdo\u011fan, whose domestic opponents have labelled as an autocrat who stifled political opposition and freedom of the press.
\u201cThe fact that President Trump has this apparently very close relationship with President Erdo\u011fan probably played a role in stabilizing things [and ensuring] that the theatrics didn\u2019t really spill over into the summit.\u201d
\u201cPresident Trump was keen to be sure that President Erdo\u011fan was able to claim a success from the summit,\u201d added Lesser. \u201cPolitical personalities play a role in these kinds of relationships, and they\u2019re on full display at summits.
\u201cTrump, more than many, puts his personality out there when he deals with international affairs. He has a tendency to see the world through not so much through alliances, but through individual countries and, above all, individual leaders \u2026 he has a sceptical view of alliances.\u201d
Equally effective is the extravagant flattery bestowed by Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister who has made an art of adapting his natural garrulousness to play the role of \u201cTrump whisperer\u201d, frequently praising the US president for \u201csaving\u201d Nato by getting European allies to raise their spending on defence, long a Trump bugbear.
\u201cRutte is really doing a good job of trying to say to Trump, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s working. We\u2019re we\u2019re becoming more capable allies. We hear you,\u2019\u201d suggested Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a former senior White House adviser on Europe under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
\u201cAnd I\u2019m guessing that some of those same refrains appeared during the closed the closed meeting,\u201d he said, referring to the private session Trump shared at the summit with 31 fellow heads of allied governments.
His remarkable public change of heart towards Zelenskyy \u2013 who was once told by Trump in the White House that \u201cYou don\u2019t hold the cards\u201d \u2013 may be fueled by disappointment in Putin, for offering no concessions to help end a conflict which has now lasted longer than the first world war, as well as a consciousness of sentiments in US Congress, to which the president had paid little heed in other affairs.
\u201cI think there\u2019s a question of congressional opinion here,\u201d said Lesser. \u201cAnd as we get closer to the midterm elections, this is obviously going to weigh more heavily.\u201d
Despite the unexpectedly emollient finale, a school of thought has emerged that Trump\u2019s regular bashing of allies will leave a permanent mark \u2013 even if he is eventually replaced by an administration with a more traditional view of the transatlantic alliance.
But Kupchan argued that Trump\u2019s rhetorical hostility had not weakened or undermined the alliance, despite a loss of European trust that it could rely on US support. \u201cStepping back from all the heated rhetoric, and Trump\u2019s demeaning language toward Nato, in some ways, the picture that emerges is a positive one,\u201d he said. \u201cNato is still Nato. There are still 80,000 US troops in Europe.\u201d
What will change, analysts predict, is that Nato will become a more Europe-led alliance as the US\u2019s European partners make good on their commitment \u2013 made at last year\u2019s summit \u2013 to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035.
Europeans, meanwhile, will continue to be \u201cfreaked out\u201d by Trump\u2019s hostile language, Kupchan predicted.
\u201cHe relishes his ability to make others freak out, because that\u2019s his style,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a reality TV star. He wants to keep everybody off balance. So this kind of one moment he\u2019s ready to pull out of Nato, and the next moment he loves Nato.\u201d
Beneath the president\u2019s headline-grabbing posturing may lie a deeper problem of US strategic indecision.
Kupchan \u2013 author of a recent article<\/a> entitled \u201cAmerica does not know its own mind\u201d \u2013 warned Trump was a symptom, rather than cause, of a foreign policy malaise. \u201cThe underlying problem is the collapse of the political center \u2013 the reality that the United States doesn\u2019t really have a foreign policy any more,\u201d he said.
\u201cEvery time there\u2019s a presidential election, we swing from one grand strategy to a completely different grand strategy.
\u201cIf you\u2019re the chancellor of Germany or the prime minister of Japan and have relied for decades on the US security guarantee, you have to plan for the worst, because the United States is passing through such a prolonged period of political dysfunction that you don\u2019t know whether you can count on Uncle Sam.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudden shift may be linked to affinity for Erdo\u011fan but what might be consequences of erratic behavior towards alliance?Donald Trump\u2019s relationship with Washington\u2019s Nato allies is nobody\u2019s idea of a happy marriage.But the US president\u2019s volatile performance at the western military alliance\u2019s annual summit in Ankara this week seemed extreme, even by Trumpian standards. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}