Trump to Attend NATO Summit... Pressure on Defense Spending and Ukraine War Solutions

U.S. President Donald Trump will attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, which will be held in Ankara, Türkiye, for two days starting on the 7th (local time). The main agenda items for this summit include the Russia-Ukraine war and increased pressure on European defense spending.

Reuters Yonhap News

According to international media outlets such as Bloomberg News on the 5th, President Trump will arrive in Ankara, Türkiye, on the 7th, where he will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and attend the NATO summit the following day. During the summit, he will also hold separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara, among others.

◆How to resolve deepening transatlantic rifts= Whether the strained relationship between the United States and NATO can be improved will be a key point of interest at this summit. In January, President Trump expressed his intention to annex Greenland, a Danish territory, even by force if necessary. This sparked a collective backlash from NATO allies in Europe.

Relations further deteriorated in February after the outbreak of the Iran war. President Trump has strongly criticized some NATO member states, saying they refused to allow the use of military bases for U.S. attacks and did not cooperate in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. He has also repeatedly questioned whether the United States is receiving enough contributions from its allies, criticizing them for not raising their defense budgets to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). At the Hague summit in the Netherlands in June last year, NATO members agreed to invest 5% of GDP in defense and security-related fields by 2035.

Matt Whitaker, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, also emphasized during a telephone briefing that “President Trump expects all allies to immediately embark on a sustainable path toward the 5% of GDP goal and reach the 5% target as quickly as possible,” stressing that expanding European defense spending is “crucially important.”

Europe is expected to emphasize that it is working to increase defense spending. There are also expectations that European countries will seek to appease President Trump by moving forward with large-scale deals, including purchasing U.S.-made weapons. In an interview with the Financial Times (FT), NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that European countries are accelerating purchases of U.S. weapons to reorganize military forces that have long been neglected and to support Ukraine. He noted, “The order backlog for U.S. weapons from Europe and Canada amounts to 300 billion dollars over the next several years, supporting about 195,000 jobs in the U.S. defense industry.”

Some observers suggest that President Trump will demand not only a greater share of defense costs from NATO, but also “loyalty.” The Associated Press reported that “President Trump is demanding not just burden-sharing but ‘loyalty,’ putting the NATO leader on the spot at the summit.”

◆Trump to meet with Zelensky= President Trump is expected to discuss ways to end the Russia-Ukraine war in his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to Bloomberg, although President Trump pledged during his presidential campaign that he would end the war in a single day if re-elected, he has expressed frustration at not being able to achieve this. Meanwhile, as the United States focuses on the Iran war, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have stalled.

Recently, Ukraine has showcased its resilience against a much larger adversary by launching attacks deep into Russian territory using long-range drones and missiles. However, a U.S. official explained during a telephone briefing on the 5th that the U.S. administration still views the war as a stalemate, with neither side making clear progress. The official, who requested anonymity, added that President Trump plans to discuss ways to end the war with President Zelensky.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.