NATO leaders open Ankara summit as Trump presses on spending and Ukraine
NATO heads of state and government opened a summit in Ankara on Tuesday, with defense spending and support for Ukraine’s military needs at the top of the agenda. Holding the gathering in Turkey’s capital is itself notable, putting a member that has long straddled Western and rival interests at the center of the alliance’s diplomacy.
President Trump arrived continuing his campaign to push allies well beyond NATO’s 2% of GDP spending target toward the bloc’s newer, higher goal, and is weighing whether to reverse Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35 fighter program — leverage that ties Ankara’s cooperation to a concrete defense payoff. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to the summit seeking additional air-defense systems after a fresh wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities.
The meeting is an early test of how far Trump’s transactional approach reshapes the transatlantic relationship. Higher spending pledges and a Turkey-F-35 deal would signal alliance cohesion on Washington’s terms; visible friction over burden-sharing or Ukraine would suggest the opposite. Substantive decisions, if any, are expected as the summit proceeds.