Sabre-rattling to ‘tremendous love’: erratic Trump dominates final hours of Nato summit

Trump concluded by hosting a rambling press conference that barely addressed Nato topics. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA View image in fullscreen Trump concluded by hosting a rambling press conference that barely addressed Nato topics. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA Sabre-rattling to ‘tremendous love’: erratic Trump dominates final hours of Nato summit Alliance leaders, who had feared the worst, will hail US president’s renewed support for article 5 as key victory An erratic and at times irascible Donald Trump has said he felt a “tremendous love” from western leaders at the Nato summit, only hours after lambasting them over their defence spending and not helping the US in attacking Iran. The US president’s mixed messaging dominated the final hours of the two-day gathering in Ankara, Turkey, beginning with him publicly calling Iran’s leadership scum and renewing his demand for control of Greenland . He then adopted a softer tone in a private meeting of 32 Nato leaders in the late morning, where he did not mention Greenland or other earlier criticisms, and instead told allies that “we want to remain with you”. “It was a great meeting, there was a lot of love in that room, a lot of unity,” Trump said soon after at a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which included a surprise offer to licence the manufacturing of Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine . Trump concluded by hosting a rambling press conference that barely addressed Nato topics, but where he praised Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , talked up the US economy and said he was “No 1 on TikTok”. 9:30 Trump on rampage at Nato summit: what does it mean for Ukraine? – The Latest Nevertheless, the shift from angry critic to Nato supporter – “if there’s one word that comes out of today it’s unification,” Trump said at the end-of-day press conference – will be hailed as a victory for the alliance whose stability been called into question. The final summit declaration, signed off by Trump and 31 other alliance leaders, affirmed the countries’ “ironclad commitment” to article 5, which declares that an attack one Nato member is an attack on them all. But there was also no announcement of the date for the next leaders’ summit, due to happen in Albania, where anti-Trump and anti government protests are taking place , amid hints it would not happen until 2028. Nato summits have not always taken place annually but the overwhelming concern in parts of Europe is that Trump’s grandstanding at such events risks giving hope to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, undermining deterrence and alliance unity. European leaders were concerned Trump was in a bad mood after a dinner on Tuesday night at the Turkish president’s compound in Ankara, and had agreed not to mention the 4-1 loss suffered by the US team against Belgium earlier this week. It appeared that their worst fears were being realised when Trump appeared on Wednesday morning with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rut