President Donald Trump is meeting with other NATO leaders in Turkey on Wednesday, as the alliance faces mounting challenges from both external threats and internal divisions.
Trump has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with NATO since returning to the White House last year, forcing member states to commit to massive defense spending, and recently criticizing NATO allies for refusing to join the US war on Iran.
On Wednesday morning at a conference in Ankara, Trump made some interesting remarks, including that he has “done nothing” with NATO member Spain, which is not committed to the alliance’s new goal of spending 5% of GDP by 2035.
“Spain is a bad partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay. I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Stop all trade with Spain, please, including tourism,” he said at a press conference in Ankara with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Trump also reignited tensions between the alliances when he renewed his desire to control Greenland, territory of NATO member Denmark.
Speaking to reporters earlier, Rutte pointed to greater convergence between member states, higher defense spending and a series of military agreements inked at the event as signs of the emergence of “NATO 3.0”.
Despite Trump’s push for the US to get Greenland, Rutte emphasized that Washington remained committed to the NATO alliance.
“There is a total commitment of the United States to NATO … the commitment is there, there is no doubt,” Rutte told reporters as he arrived at a NATO summit on Wednesday morning. “Also, NATO exists in the interests of the US to prevent, for example, Russian nuclear submarines that end up on the coast of the United States. The US, in order to remain safe, needs a secure Atlantic, Europe, and the Arctic, so there is a complete commitment to NATO.”
US President Donald Trump (R) listens as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting on January 21, 2026 in Davos, Switzerland.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Rutte added that the alliance’s commitment to spend 5% of members’ gross domestic product on defense, agreed last year, is a “huge victory” for all its members – and a loss for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I also expect today to agree jointly that Russia is a long-term threat to the NATO area,” he said, before the meetings between the allies.
When asked if he had a message for Putin, Rutte replied: “You can fool us.”
“My message is that this alliance of 1 billion people who live in Europe, who live in Canada, who live in the United States, that this alliance will protect every inch of our territory,” he said. “You will not win [against] NATO. We defend ourselves. We will not attack anyone. We will only defend our way of life, our democracies, our environment. Don’t fool us, don’t play with us.”
NATO has been heavily involved in providing military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its largest military operation in the country in early 2022. Parts of the eastern side of this alliance – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania – share borders with Ukraine.
Moscow is strongly opposed to Ukraine joining NATO, and says that the expansion of the military alliance in Eastern Europe was the reason for the introduction of so-called “special military operations” in Ukraine.
