Nato leaders opened their annual summit in Ankara on Tuesday by disclosing defence procurement contracts worth at least $50bn, a move officials described as a direct response to US demands for higher European military spending. The announcement was immediately overshadowed by President Donald Trump, who told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that he was “very disappointed with Nato” and might have boycotted the gathering had it not been held in Turkey. Trump singled out Britain, France, Germany and Italy for refusing to assist the United States in its war against Iran, stating that allies “weren’t treated well” despite decades of American investment in the alliance.

According to a Nato diplomat, the contracts include $12bn for next-generation drones, surveillance aircraft and military planes, $5bn for Swedish Saab airborne radar systems to replace ageing Boeing platforms, $2.7bn for Northrop Grumman maritime surveillance drones, and $4.3bn for Airbus A400M transport aircraft. Secretary-General Mark Rutte separately announced that allies would invest more than $40bn over five years in counter-drone capabilities. Rutte presented a chart dubbed the “Trump Trillion” to illustrate that European and Canadian defence spending has risen by $1.2 trillion since 2017, with this year’s total projected at $634bn — an 11 per cent increase over 2024, though slower than the previous year’s 19 per cent jump. Four members — Poland and the three Baltic states — already exceed the alliance’s new 3.5 per cent of GDP military spending target, while several others, including Belgium, Spain and Slovenia, remain near or below the old 2 per cent benchmark.

Viewed from Washington, the spending pledges have not eased Trump’s core grievance that European allies are free-riding on American power. The president used his press appearance with Erdoğan to air a litany of complaints: he accused Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of making “a mistake” by denying US access to bases for Iran strikes, suggested UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had damaged his political future by not heeding wartime requests, and reiterated that the United States still intended to acquire Greenland from Denmark. Trump also lifted sanctions imposed on Turkey in 2020 over its purchase of Russian S-400 air defence systems and signalled willingness to sell Ankara F-35 fighter jets, a move European diplomats interpret as an effort to deepen bilateral ties at the expense of alliance cohesion.

European governments view the summit as a damage-limitation exercise. According to officials in Brussels, the primary objective is to buy time for a gradual rebalancing of the alliance, in which US conventional force levels in Europe could halve over several years while the American nuclear umbrella remains intact. Analysts in London and Paris note that even if the immediate goal is to placate Trump, the underlying trajectory points toward a more Europeanised Nato, one in which decision-making weight would shift as European members assume greater responsibility for continental defence. The summit is expected to conclude with a shortened final communiqué and a renewed pledge of support for Ukraine, but the unresolved tensions over Iran and the durability of the US security guarantee leave the alliance’s long-term cohesion in question.