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Mark Magnier

The Nato summit beginning on Tuesday in Turkey is expected to be low-key as European members track their progress towards increased defence spending goals and Beijing watches intently from afar.
Low-key, that is, with one major caveat. Will the get-along US President Donald Trump show up, or the raging Trump who slammed the alliance, questioned its purpose and threatened repeatedly to take his military and head home?
Early indications suggested it would be the raging one.
“The United States spends more money on Nato than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing,” Trump posted Thursday. “Ridiculous!”
The mercurial president’s impatience, distrust of multilateral groupings and repeated run-ins with Nato have its other 31 members walking on eggshells in advance of the July 7-8 gathering in Ankara.


“It’s never quite clear with President Trump what will transpire,” said Max Bergmann, a director at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], “Europeans view President Trump as quite combustible and are quite nervous.”
Major official and unofficial agenda items are expected to include a “report card” on how well European Nato members are doing towards their respective defence spending targets of five per cent of GDP by 2035, set at last year’s summit, or calls for European strategic autonomy by 2030.
But Trump is not a big fan of waiting.
“The timeline of the United States is 2027,” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), referring to Trump’s electoral calendar. “And so how do you reconcile these timelines to make it credible and doable?”
Also key related concerns for alliance members include how to build Europe’s expertise and defence production capacity, especially given acute shortages stemming from the wars in Ukraine and Iran; and how to reduce US dependence while keeping Trump from pulling the US out of Nato.
Other issues include how to assist Kyiv in its existential battle with Moscow; how to factor in Iran, which is not on the official agenda; and how to slice through the European Union’s notorious bureaucracy and slow pace while ensuring that all the EU defence pieces fit together.
“It’s kind of a pot luck dinner where everyone has to bring a dish,” said Julianne Smith, president of consultancy Clarion Strategies and a former US permanent representative to Nato. “You want to make sure you’ve got a little bit of everything.”
Why China will be keeping a close eye on next week’s Nato summit
Beijing may not have a seat at Ankara’s Presidential Complex, but it will be paying close attention, analysts said.
“China probably won’t admit it, but it is very keenly watching the Nato summit,” said Sourabh Gupta, senior fellow with the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington. “What – and how – the Trump administration forcibly stuffs down the throat of its US allies in Ankara, as well as the allies’ reaction, will be keenly observed in Beijing.”
China will look for clues about the direction of US policy, its top security concern, with some potential changes affecting the Asian giant, analysts said.
If Trump seems to be moving quickly to pull forces out of Europe and redeploy them to Asia, where China is Washington’s declared “sole pacing challenge”, this could leave Beijing confronting a more focused US adversary. At the same time, Trump’s mercurial decision-making and general distrust of groupings have alienated many Nato members and Asian allies, to Beijing’s benefit.


Similarly, if Trump’s pivot away from Europe leads the Pentagon to organise around a single conflict scenario from its traditional multi-conflict approach, this could leave more room for China to expand its global influence. But that could also see the US make Taiwan a central focus.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed by law to supplying it with weapons.
Chinese military planners will also search for clues on other key issues.
“First, they will be assessing the extent and implications of the rift between the US and some Nato allies over mixed support for the US’ war against Iran,” said David Finkelstein, distinguished research fellow at CNA, an independent research institute in Arlington, Virginia.
“Second, Beijing will be watching for any language coming out of the summit that expresses Nato’s interest in or concerns about security developments in the Asia-Pacific region.”
On other fronts, analysts said, Beijing will look for Nato’s stance towards Russia, among China’s strongest global partners, and the alliance’s links with the so-called IP-4 Pacific grouping of South Korea, Australia, Japan and New Zealand.
Few analysts foresee Nato expanding to the Asia-Pacific given its many problems closer to home. And even as Russia remains one of China’s closest partners, analysts said, this only goes so far as it relates to Nato.
“It dovetails, but only up to a point,” said Gupta. “Dealing with Nato is Russia’s problem and Russia’s alone, not China’s. China has its hands full in the Western Pacific theatre.”
Nato tried to keep Trump on side at last year’s summit in the Netherlands by agreeing to the 2035 spending targets, broken out as a 3.5 per cent for defence and a more wobbly 1.5 per cent for bridges, ports, the internet and other “defence-related” projects.
Will more European spending with US defence contractors pacify Trump?
This year, European members hope the lure of more European spending with US defence contractors will mollify him. But he has lashed out in recent weeks at several members for resisting his call to fight in the Iran war that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started but did not tell them about.
“Spain is a horror show. Spain is terrible,” he said, adding that he was “deeply disappointed” at the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, accusing them of seeking a “free ride”.
One factor that may reduce the chest-thumping and name-calling may be Trump’s close relationship with the Turkish president, the Nato host and strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump said the reason he is going is “out of respect for President Erdogan”, teasing that he is “going to probably do something that’s going to make him very happy”.

“The bar is quite low for the Nato summit, as long as there aren’t major blow-ups – a Greenland-style blow-up,” said Seth Jones, defence and security president at the CSIS. “Maybe even some references to far-right political parties. I mean, there are lots of options, but no blow-ups would be the low bar that many would at least hope for.”
Others compared the fraught gathering to America’s harvest festival, which can be tranquil or deteriorate into family fights fuelled by personalities and politics.
“The basic hope for European leaders is that it’s basically kind of a normal sort of Thanksgiving dinner-style summit,” said Bergmann.
“There’s maybe some passive-aggressive or rude comments thrown around here or there, but nothing explodes into an actual sort of fight. And I think that would be deemed a success.”


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US president’s impatience and distrust of multilateral groupings has Nato’s 31 other members walking on eggshells before next week’s key meeting


US president’s impatience and distrust of multilateral groupings has Nato’s 31 other members walking on eggshells before next week’s key meeting.


Which Trump will show up at Nato summit? Odds are it will be the fuming one

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US president’s impatience and distrust of multilateral groupings has Nato’s 31 other members walking on eggshells before next week’s key meeting

US president’s impatience and distrust of multilateral groupings has Nato’s 31 other members walking on eggshells before next week’s key meeting