U.S. President Donald Trump, ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit opening on the 7th in Ankara, Türkiye, brought up the fact that some European allies did not directly join the recent Iran war and pressed the alliance for "loyalty."
Last year, NATO member states accepted Trump's demand and agreed to invest 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the defense and security sectors by 2035. But in a recent meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump said, "We don't need money. We just want loyalty," and asked whether countries that did not help enough when the United States went to war could be seen as true allies. After Europe accepted demands to increase defense spending, Trump added a new criterion for alliance status: how much they cooperated in wars the United States started on its own.
On the 5th, Germany's Deutsche Welle and the Washington Post (WP) said NATO is highlighting increased European and Canadian defense spending and expanded purchases of U.S. weapons as achievements of the Trump administration to avoid a head-on clash with the United States. The schedule for leader-level meetings and the joint declaration was pared back to core agenda items to minimize face time. According to Reuters, the draft joint declaration for this summit includes an "ironclad" commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, language defining Russia as a long-term threat, a plan to provide 70 billion euros to Ukraine this year and to maintain at least that level next year. On Iran, it inserted only principle language demanding no nuclear weapons and freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, avoiding a format that would officially endorse the U.S. war as NATO's. During the summit, Trump will hold consecutive meetings with Türkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Syria President Ahmed al-Shara. President Lee Jae-myung will also attend the summit and deliver a speech at the defense industry forum.
The defense spending goal set by NATO members in 2014 was 2% of GDP. From his first term, Trump has criticized Europe for saving on defense spending by relying on U.S. military power. In the end, at the Hague summit last year, member states pledged to invest 5% of GDP by 2035, adding 1.5% for military infrastructure and cyber security to the core defense spending of 3.5%. NATO calculated that core defense investment by Europe and Canada alone increased by $139 billion (about 212 trillion won) in 2025.
According to AP, on the 24th of last month at the Oval Office, Secretary-General Rutte met Trump and presented a chart with the gold-lettered phrase "The Trump Trillion," referring to the $1.2 trillion (about 1,832 trillion won) in additional defense expenditure by Europe and Canada since 2017. He also explained that Europe has ordered about $300 billion (about 458 trillion won) in U.S. weapons, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the United States. But Trump said at that meeting, "Spain is a horror show. I'm disappointed in Italy and disappointed in the United Kingdom," naming allies that did not directly enter the Iran war or were reluctant to lend bases. He added, "They let us down."
On Feb. 28, the United States began airstrikes on Iran without prior consultation with Israel and NATO allies. Some members, including Spain and Italy, refused to join the war directly or participate in the operation to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. They also placed limits on the use of joint bases and airspace for attacks on Iran. Most members, however, supported use of U.S. bases, overflight, and movement of troops and equipment under existing agreements. Rutte countered to Trump that "over six weeks of this war, 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. military aircraft took off from European bases," AP reported. Still, while Europe provided logistics and rear support, it drew a line at becoming a belligerent in a war started by the United States.
Article 5 of the NATO treaty deems an armed attack on any member in Europe or North America as an attack on all members. It then stipulates that "each country shall take such action as it deems necessary." There is no clause that other members must automatically send troops to extra-regional military operations initiated by the United States. The Iran war has also been in a cease-fire since last month with full-scale fighting halted, so this is not a phase where the United States is demanding participation in a new war.
The U.S. Ministry of National Defense announced last month that it would reduce the scale of troops, warships, aircraft, and drones it had pledged to provide when European members are attacked. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that while reviewing U.S. forces stationed in Europe and force posture for six months, Washington will secure clear guarantees for joint base use, overflight, and authority to move troops in a crisis. Experience during the Iran war, when some countries limited bases and airspace for offensive operations, is cited as the reason for the review. The U.S. Ministry of National Defense has not yet finalized which country's stationed forces will be reduced.
Defense costs can be measured in numbers like 3.5% or 5% of GDP, but there is no agreed standard for loyalty. Assessments differ on whether providing bases and airspace is enough, whether public support for U.S. military action is required, or whether troops must be sent. Some warn that if the U.S. president arbitrarily judges each member's loyalty and links it to the collective defense pledge, Russia is more likely to test NATO's will to respond.
For that reason, experts said this summit is unlikely to yield answers on how far Europe must cooperate in U.S.-led wars like the Iran war, and under what conditions the United States will move to defend Europe in the future. After last month's White House meeting, Secretary-General Rutte told reporters that Trump is "completely committed" to the NATO alliance and that the United States "will definitely" move to defend Europe if it is attacked. By contrast, former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recalled the contentious 2018 summit with Trump in his memoir, writing, "If the U.S. president says he no longer intends to defend other allies and, in protest, walks out of the NATO summit hall, then the NATO treaty and its security guarantees are of little value."