US allies apprehensive after capricious Trump changes tune at Nato summit

Trump at the Nato summit in Ankara this week. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters View image in fullscreen Trump at the Nato summit in Ankara this week. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters US allies apprehensive after capricious Trump changes tune at Nato summit Sudden shift may be linked to affinity for Erdoğan but what might be consequences of erratic behavior towards alliance? Donald Trump’s relationship with Washington’s Nato allies is nobody’s idea of a happy marriage. But the US president’s volatile performance at the western military alliance’s annual summit in Ankara this week seemed extreme, even by Trumpian standards. As commentators sought toexplain what happened, their usually capacious stock of Trump-fitting cliches was at risk of exhaustion. Trump arrived in the Turkish capital last Tuesday in a spectacular funk, visibly angry that the temporary ceasefire arrangement he had agreed with Iran had failed to hold, and threatening to unleash more destruction and mayhem in consequence. The country’s Islamic leadership, which he praised as “very reasonable” just two weeks earlier, were “scum” and “sick people”, he told journalists as he sat beside Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte. Just as vehemently, he lashed out at the alliance, which has been the cornerstone of collective western security policy since 1949, when it was founded as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in response to the spread of Soviet communism after the second world war. Trump was “not happy with Nato”, he said, complaining about the failure of alliance members – including Britain – to help him in the Iran war, rehashing his claims on Greenland despite it being sovereign Danish territory, and demanding the US sever trade ties with Spain because its socialist government (who he denounced as “bad people”) refused to comply with new defence spending targets. Hours later, he emerged from a meeting – with the leaders he had just lambasted – talking about unity. “There was a lot of love in that room,” Trump said. He had, apparently, never had a Nato meeting that had been so positive. Trump extended this sudden warmth to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – sitting alongside a leader he has frequently viewed as a bête noire – whom he praised him as “ingenious” for holding his country together in a war against Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, whose political style and cause Trump has long been assumed to prefer. Terms such as “mercurial” and “whiplash” were predictably applied across much of the media to describe the seemingly capricious conduct. Less obvious was its cause, and possible long-term effect. Why had Trump suddenly changed his tune on an alliance he has frequently derided as a “paper tiger”, and accused of “ripping off” the US by expecting it cover the lion’s share of expenditure? And what might the consequences be of such unpredictable and, by some measures, abusive behavior? The answers, according to some analysts, range from relatively straightforward to mor