No More Summits with Trump

NATO Leaders left Ankara yesterday determined not to convene another summit meeting so long as Donald Trump is president.

Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Ankara, July 8, 2026. Photo courtesy of NATO

Once Donald Trump had said his last words at his post-summit press conference in Ankara yesterday, NATO leaders breathed sighs of relief that the meeting turned out ok. There were fireworks before the meeting from the US president; but he was genial and supportive inside the hall where the 32 NATO leaders gathered. Afterwards, Trump even praised the leaders and said he felt “tremendous love” from them in the room.

But, as I write in my latest “From Across the Pond” column, the anxiety that preceded the gathering in Ankara convinced all the leaders that these summits really aren’t worth the effort — so long as Donald Trump is U.S. president.

They said just as much, ending the summit with a vague: “We look forward to our next meeting,” rather than reaffirm they would come together in Albania next year, as planned.

And they are right. Ankara, in many ways, was a lost opportunity.

The grandly named “Ankara Summit Declaration” is a one-page, six-paragraph boilerplate statement that isn’t worth the paper it was written on. And while reports from insidethe three-hour leaders’ meeting suggested Trump was genial and even praised allies for increasing their defense spending, he unleashed a fusillade of invectives against those very same countries as soon as the cameras were on.

He scolded Britain, France, Germany and Belgium for not helping during the war in Iran. He called Spaniards “hopeless, bad people,” ordering an immediate halt to all trade with the country. And he once again said Greenland should be part of the U.S., claiming it was “very important” for America, “but it is not important for Denmark.”

It’s little wonder many NATO leaders now believe making these gatherings an annual ritual was a mistake, and that the alliance needs to go back to convening its summits only occasionally.

This was the norm not so long ago. It was under former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that summits first became an annual affair. As a former Norwegian prime minister, he believed the organization’s work required convening his peers on a regular basis. His successor, Mark Rutte, shared that belief. Until now.

Read the entire piece at Politico Europe.