The Memo: Sea of tensions await Trump at NATO summit

President Trump will arrive in Ankara on Tuesday for a NATO summit that comes amid a sea of troubles for the alliance.

The war in Ukraine has no end in sight, regardless of Trump’s campaign-trail pledge to solve it on Day One when he returned to power. 

Washington’s disinclination to back either Ukraine or the NATO alliance as emphatically as before is placing more of a burden on European partners. There is no guarantee they are willing or able to fully shoulder it.

Trump also remains irked with many NATO allies for refusing to back the war on Iran he launched in conjunction with Israel. The other nations counter that it was not their war in the first place. They were aggrieved at the lack of consultation in advance, and felt under no obligation to get Trump out of the geopolitical dilemma into which he had placed himself.

As if all that were not enough, there are personal tensions that cannot be ignored. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, usually one of the more Trump-friendly western European leaders, had a spat with the president last month over whether she did or did not “beg” him for a photograph together at a Group of Seven meeting, as he claimed.

The president’s relationship with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer took another downward lurch recently after Trump preempted Starmer’s announcement that the Briton would be stepping down. Trump’s interactions with French President Emmanuel Macron continue to be chilly: Trump, earlier this year, made fun of how Macron is treated by his wife. 

As always with Trump, the potential for drama on a grand scale is ever-present. The president is scheduled to hold a news conference on Wednesday afternoon Ankara time, at the conclusion of the summit, where headlines will surely be made.

On substance, experts from both sides of the ideological divide are hoping to see a dialing down of the friction between the U.S. and its European partners during the........

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