Opinion: Trump's NATO shift cannot mask alliance's deepening fault lines

ISTANBUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Just hours after publicly berating European allies and questioning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) cohesion at the alliance's summit in Ankara, U.S. President Donald Trump closed the meeting on Wednesday by praising NATO's "tremendous unity" and calling the summit a success.

The summit's seemingly harmonious finale stood in sharp contrast to months of mounting transatlantic discord.

European governments had refused to send warships to support Washington's effort to "reopen" the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war, drawing sharp criticism from Trump and exposing widening differences over security priorities and the use of force.

The tensions were on full display as the summit opened. Upon arriving in the Turkish capital, Trump publicly criticized Italy, Germany and France for "turning us down," saying he was "very disappointed" with NATO. He also revived his long-standing demand that Greenland should become part of the United States, despite Denmark's repeated rejection of the idea.

The following day, Trump threatened to "cut off all trade" with Spain. Madrid recently declined to meet NATO's new 5 percent gross domestic product (GDP) defense spending target and has refused to allow the United States to utilize its airspace or territory for operations during the war with Iran.

Hasan Unal, professor of international relations and director of the Ankara-based New World Research Center, said European governments are increasingly unwilling to participate in U.S.-led military operations conducted outside NATO's collective defense framework, fearing the political and economic costs of such involvement. Washington, he argued, can no longer assume that its European allies will automatically align themselves with American strategic priorities.

Yet by the summit's conclusion, confrontation had given way to declarations of unity. What has changed?

The answer lies less in diplomacy than in dollars.

Trump himself offered perhaps the clearest explanation for his abrupt change of tone.

"They want to buy American equipment," he told the summit's closing press conference.

That candid remark cut through the diplomatic language of alliance solidarity. Beneath the carefully orchestrated display of unity was a simple transaction: Europe was committed to spending more, and the United States stood to profit.

For years, Trump has pressed NATO allies to sharply increase their defense spending, repeatedly warning that the United States would no longer guarantee their security if they failed to shoulder a greater share of the burden. At the alliance's summit in The Hague last year, member states agreed to raise defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.

Against the backdrop of deteriorating transatlantic relations, Washington has recently reinforced this pressure by signalling that it could withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Europe. Under mounting pressure, NATO members arrived in Ankara eager to demonstrate their commitment. The summit concluded with announcements of more than 50 billion U.S. dollars in new military procurement.

Much of that spending is expected to flow back to U.S. defense manufacturers. As Trump put it in the press conference, "We're taking to rapidly scale up production in the United States."

The news outlet Politico described the Trump administration as "turning NATO into a cash machine." Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, recently said that allies had pledged nearly 120 billion dollars in additional defense spending over the past year, roughly half of which is expected to be spent on U.S.-made weapons.

Trump's sudden praise for NATO therefore sounded less like a change of heart than a declaration of commercial success.

For many European governments, however, maintaining alliance unity comes at a growing cost.

Several NATO members have long opposed substantial increases in military spending. Their acceptance of the 5-percent target appears to be driven less by strategic consensus than by a desire to avoid an open confrontation with Washington.

At home, many European countries face slow economic growth, mounting public debt and aging populations. Their voters are more concerned with healthcare, education and pensions than with massive weapons purchases, leaving governments caught between U.S. pressure abroad and domestic political realities.

Those tensions are no longer confined to government meeting rooms. In the days leading up to the summit, anti-NATO demonstrations took place in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish cities. Protesters carried banners reading, "Budgets for people, not for NATO," and "NATO wants war, workers want peace."

Similar demonstrations have emerged over the past two years in countries including Spain and the Netherlands. Baris Doster, a scholar at Istanbul's Marmara University, said these protests reflect growing public concern over the economic and social costs of NATO's continued militarization.

Trump's shift in tone may have helped end the summit on a seemingly positive note, but it did little to resolve the structural tensions that continue to divide the alliance.

As the United States increasingly approaches NATO through the lens of burden-sharing, arms sales and strategic leverage, many European nations are seeking to contain both the financial costs and political risks of aligning too closely with Washington's global agenda. As long as those competing priorities endure, declarations of alliance unity will remain more rhetorical than real. ■