This time last year US president Donald Trump harangued the EU’s Nato members into promising a dramatic increase in defence-related spending.
But EU leaders hoping that this might have bought them Trump’s approval or, at least, a period of predictability, have been disappointed.
Having threatened to quit Nato because of European freeriding on the back of US defence spending, and then threatened fellow Nato member Denmark over its refusal to cede Greenland, Trump is now furious about the lack of support for his war against Iran.
“They were not there for us!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account ahead of next week’s Nato summit in Ankara (7 and 8 July).
He added that Washington’s relationship with the alliance “is not reciprocal”, and that it was ridiculous” for the US to continue its “one-sided” relationship with Nato.
