NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and the rest of Washington’s European and Canadian allies closed out this year’s annual NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, with a long exhale. From their perspective, the meeting wasn’t the disaster so many anticipated it to be. President Trump, for instance, didn’t announce a U.S. pullout from the alliance despite his frequent flirtations with doing so. He agreed to grant Ukraine a U.S. license so Kyiv can start producing its own Patriot missile interceptors, and he signed onto the communique reiterating that Article 5, the most important commandment in the NATO church, is alive and well.
Even so, the summitry was shaken apart by moments of Trumpian outrage. The U.S. president used his public remarks throughout the two-day event to gripe about how the United States was being treated unfairly by allies who should be champing at the bit to aid Washington any way they can. Spain, the perpetual defense laggard that refuses to abide by NATO’s own spending benchmarks, was singled out as a “terrible partner.” Trump also lit into Italy and the United Kingdom, yet again, for refusing to assist Washington’s war with Iran.
Despite those predictable grievances, Rutte’s attempts to keep Trump interested in the alliance have succeeded for the time being. But the optimal phrase here is “for the time being.” In the age of Trump, nothing is settled for long. Old disputes—like the status of Greenland—never go away, and power, not virtue signaling, is the name of the game. Incessant flattery will only get Washington’s NATO allies so far. If anyone was expecting this summit to produce permanent bonhomie between the United States and the rest of the transatlantic alliance, they were fooling themselves.
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