President Donald Trump said Thursday it is “ridiculous” for the United States to continue its “one-sided” relationship with NATO, less than a week before alliance leaders gather for a summit in Ankara. The outburst, posted on his Truth Social platform, is the latest escalation in a confrontation that has been building since the Iran war exposed the depth of the transatlantic divide.
“They were not there for us,” Trump wrote. He said Washington’s relationship with NATO “is not reciprocal” and included a chart comparing US defense spending with that of other member states.
The timing matters. NATO heads of state will meet in Ankara on July 7 and 8 for a summit that was already expected to be difficult. Trump’s public attack, four days before the meeting, guarantees that the dominant topic will not be collective defense or the threat from Russia. It will be the American president’s anger at his own allies.
The immediate cause of Trump’s frustration is the Iran war. When the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, several European allies restricted the use of bases and airspace for US operations. Spain, Italy, and others imposed limits. Germany and France declined to participate. In Trump’s view, this was a betrayal by countries whose very existence depends on the American security guarantee.
“There’s nobody that we think we’re close to that didn’t treat us badly. We were let down. We didn’t need help on this at all,” Trump told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a White House meeting in June. “Spain is a horror show. Spain is terrible. I was disappointed with Italy. I was disappointed with the UK. We were disappointed with Germany and France.”
The gap between Trump’s characterization and the alliance’s actual behavior is significant. NATO chief Rutte pointed out that 4,000 to 5,000 US planes took off from bases in Europe during the first six weeks of the Iran campaign. European allies did not refuse cooperation outright. They placed conditions on the use of their territory for offensive operations that the US had launched without consulting them.
But the damage is done. The United States has already acted on its displeasure. On June 18, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a formal review of US troop deployments in Europe, telling NATO defense ministers in Brussels that the review would last up to six months and include consultations with Congress. Hegseth’s language was blunt. He said the goal was to ensure that Europe takes “primary responsibility for the defense of Europe” and that the US would no longer tolerate “free riding” allies.
The review is not an empty threat. The US has already cut some of its contributions to NATO’s crisis response forces with immediate effect. A Reuters report cited by Defense News noted that the number of US fighter jets available to NATO in a crisis has been reduced by a third, and the US has told allies it will shrink the pool of strategic bombers and warships committed to the alliance.
Hegseth’s speech in Brussels was covered by War on the Rocks, which described his approach as “misguided and misunderstood” in an analysis published Friday. The defense analysts argued that the administration’s framing of the issue as a simple matter of burden sharing misses the deeper strategic costs. Moving troops out of Europe weakens the very deterrent posture that the alliance exists to maintain. Punishing allies for not participating in a war that Washington chose to start without them is less a reform of NATO than a dismantling of its foundation.
Trump is not seeking to leave NATO entirely, at least not yet. A full withdrawal would require congressional approval, and the Senate is unlikely to grant it. But the administration has found other ways to signal disengagement. Reducing force commitments, withdrawing from crisis response rosters, and publicly questioning the value of the alliance all achieve the same effect without a formal vote.
The Ankara summit will test how much of the alliance can survive when its largest member treats its partners as adversaries. Rutte, the NATO chief who once called Trump “daddy” at a previous summit to flatter him into cooperation, will try again. But the pattern is by now familiar. Trump demands loyalty. The allies hesitate, because loyalty to Washington is not the same as loyalty to NATO. And the alliance, built over 75 years on the assumption that America would lead, finds itself waiting for a leader who no longer wants the job.