The next NATO summit takes place this week in Türkiye. A NATO summit that comes with quite a bit of tension between European allies and Donald Trump’s administration: why is this Summit important?
The World Order of Julia in the wave analyzes the two key issues that will be discussed during the summit that will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Ankara:
- Help Ukraine.
- European defense spending.
War in Ukraine
According to experts, they do not believe that it will generate much controversy because there is a broad consensus to continue sending money and weapons to the country so that it can continue defending itself against Russia. Especially at a time – and this has been seen in recent weeks – where there are long-range Ukrainian attacks on refineries and other energy infrastructure: “Also a lot of pressure on Crimea, which in general has also done damage in Russia.”
But, now that Viktor Orbán is not in Hungary, it is “important” because many of the decisions about Ukraine “should be easier to make, both in the EU and in NATO.” There are two main lines here:
- Continue financing the country, which is fundamentally done by the European Union.
- Give up or finance the purchase of both weapons, which are primarily a matter for the United States, although not alone.
European defense spending
This is going to be a delicate issue because NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is supposed to propose a roadmap to achieve the investment objectives that European partners must achieve. It is assumed that Rutte will be “quite complacent with what Donald Trump intends” and it is also assumed that there will be countries, such as Spain, reluctant to increase spending, at least to levels of 5% that have been proposed: “Yes, he has accepted 2%, but 5% is unaffordable.”
And how will Trump be? Probably, “a little with the impetus of the anniversary of independence, he will want to give an image of strength, also after what happened in Iran. I don’t rule out the issue of Greenland coming up.”
The fact is that what the president of the United States wants is for us Europeans to spend as much money as possible on his arms industry, “which is the most important at the moment,” and furthermore, Trump “does not hide in that every time he raises an issue like this. He clearly marks it so that it is Europe that buys from its industries and does not develop its own industry. And every time a European country revolts a little, Trump makes it fall off a donkey.”
“Europe has to take note of what is happening”
“Let’s see if Europe wakes up and takes note of what is happening with Trump to develop the defense industry,” says Julia, who believes that it should do so as soon as possible so as not to continue buying from the United States. “The problem,” they point out from The World Order, “is that we are many countries, each with its own industry, and we have to integrate things. But we are following a path at a snail’s pace and that does not correspond to everything that is happening right now in the world.”
And it costs a lot because “we have always associated the issue of the defense industry or the defensive field with national security.” For example, Germany has recently said that in a few years it will have to spend much more on defense. And that money is going to come from social cuts; “There has even been a proposal to increase the retirement age.” That is to say, “there are speeches from countries with an economic orthodoxy much deeper than ours, that are going to make this spending on defense in exchange for cutting back in many welfare or social areas.”
