Donald Trump arrived in Ankara this week in what observers described as a spectacular funk. The US president was visibly angry that a temporary ceasefire arrangement with Iran had collapsed, and he came swinging hard at everyone in his path.
Standing beside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump unleashed a barrage of insults at the Iranian leadership he had praised as "very reasonable" just two weeks earlier, now calling them "scum" and "sick people." He then trained his fire on the alliance itself, complaining that members including Britain had failed to support him in the Iran conflict, rehashing sovereignty claims over Greenland, and demanding the US cut trade ties with Spain for resisting his defense spending demands.
Then something shifted. Hours after the public tirade, Trump emerged from a closed meeting with the same leaders he had just attacked and spoke of unity and love in the room. The transformation was so stark that he claimed never to have experienced a NATO meeting quite so positive.
The whiplash extended to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump has long treated as a liability but now called "ingenious" for holding his country together against Russian aggression. Media outlets scrambled to apply words like "mercurial" and "capricious" to explain the behavior, but the deeper question remained unsettled: why the sudden reversal, and what does it mean for an alliance already fractured by years of Trump's hostility?
Analysts who examined the summit point to Trump's apparent affinity for the host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. At a joint press conference, Trump said he might not have attended had the summit been held elsewhere, praising Turkey as more loyal than other supposedly dependable partners. He drew a stark contrast between his rapport with Erdoğan, whom he called "one of the toughest people," and his disdain for what he termed "the weakest, most pathetic people."
Ian Lesser, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund who attended the summit, characterized the event as having a "bipolar quality" directly traceable to Trump's chemistry with Erdoğan. The president, Lesser suggested, was invested in allowing Erdoğan to claim success from the gathering, preventing the theatrics from derailing the formal proceedings.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte played a quieter but crucial stabilizing role. A former Dutch prime minister, Rutte has cultivated a reputation as a "Trump whisperer," frequently crediting the US president with strengthening the alliance by pressuring European members to raise defense spending. Charles Kupchan, a Georgetown University professor and former White House adviser on Europe, suggested that Rutte's flattery during both public remarks and the closed meeting likely contributed to Trump's shift in tone.
Trump's surprising warmth toward Zelenskyy may stem partly from disappointment with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has offered no concessions to end the conflict. Congressional sentiment also appears to have registered with the president as the calendar moves toward midterm elections, a political consideration that rarely drives his foreign policy decisions.
Yet behind the headline reversals lurks a more systemic anxiety among NATO partners. Trump's regular attacks on the alliance have eroded European confidence in US commitment, even if his latest performance suggested temporary reconciliation. Kupchan argued that despite the harsh rhetoric, structural reality remains intact: 80,000 US troops remain stationed in Europe, and NATO as an institution persists. The alliance itself is not crumbling.
What is likely to shift is the balance of power within it. European partners are expected to follow through on commitments made at last year's summit to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2025, effectively making NATO more Europe-led and less dependent on US security guarantees. This development may ultimately prove beneficial, analysts suggest, though it comes as a direct response to Trump's demonstrated unreliability.
Kupchan predicts that Europeans will remain perpetually "freaked out" by Trump's hostile language, which he appears to relish as a tool to keep others off balance. The underlying malaise, however, extends beyond any single president. Kupchan has written that America lacks strategic clarity, swinging between radically different grand strategies with each presidential election. For Germany's chancellor or Japan's prime minister, this creates an impossible planning scenario: they cannot confidently rely on the US security guarantee because American political dysfunction appears to be a permanent feature, not a temporary aberration.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump's performance in Ankara perfectly captures his entire approach to alliances: blow them up on Tuesday, declare them saved on Wednesday, keep everyone guessing what Thursday brings."
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