Golden guns as a gift and Rutte's subservience: the most jarring moments of the NATO summit

Special envoy to AnkaraEverything Donald Trump touches becomes unpredictable and implausible. And this week's NATO summit in Ankara has been no exception. The meeting has been overshadowed by the outbursts and threats from the New York magnate to his allies, and the issues that really matter to military understanding have been relegated to the background, such as the rearmament of Europe or military aid to Ukraine. The host of the meeting, the Turk Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pedro Sánchez, who has been the preferred target of the President of the United States, have also been protagonists. The meeting has left a list of anecdotes that, although they may seem trivial, are symptomatic of the moment the Alliance is going through.

Trump's insults and gaffes

The President of the United States arrived at the summit insulting everyone. He called the leaders of the Iranian regime "scum" and "cancer", with whom he left the door open to negotiate peace, and called the citizens of Spain "bad people". A few hours earlier, he had set the summit ablaze when he revived his expansionist desires with Greenland, which is sovereign territory of Denmark – a member state of the European Union and an ally of NATO. The rest of the summit focused, above all, on cooling tensions and preventing Trump from raising his tone even further.

Despite moderating his insults, the US president had two moments that caused astonishment. In a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the summit, Trump referred to the Ukrainian president as "President Putin." Minutes earlier, in the same conversation, the New York magnate attributed to the "Islamic Republic of Japan" an Iranian missile attack against a US ship in the Middle East, according to statements collected by the Japanese news agency Kyodo.

Rutte's servility and the uncomfortable question

One of the images that went most viral was when, at the family photo of the leaders, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, pointed at Trump and laughed at the white sports shoes worn by the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, who usually wears this footwear. Although the leader of the Atlantic Alliance seemed to expect to find a sign of complicity in the tenant of the White House, the New York tycoon was not amused at all and continued with his grumpy face.

This attitude was criticized, especially on social networks, because it shows to what extent Rutte is flattering Trump, who clearly dominates the Atlantic Alliance, even if the price to pay is to belittle the rest of the allies of the military understanding. The next day, at the final press conference, a question from a Danish journalist to the Secretary General of NATO about this type of attitude also went viral. "He sits next to Trump when he talks about the conquest of Greenland and attacks allies like Spain, things that the former Rutte would not seem to have approved of. Does sitting there and saying nothing affect your personal dignity?", he asked him. Rutte responded by claiming Trump's leadership at NATO, and reiterated that, thanks to him, the military understanding is "very strong".

Erdogan's golden guns and the clique

Erdogan preemptively repressed and before the summit began, he detained hundreds of activists, politicians, and journalists critical of the regime, which was noticeable in the final press conference. Although security guards asked journalists to stay and listen to Erdogan's appearance after Trump's, few foreign professionals moved from their seats. However, they had no escape either: in the press room, they played the Turkish leader's press conference at full volume and, despite several attempts, no summit worker lowered the volume.

The vast majority of journalists who attended the press conference were Turkish, and Erdogan's filtering was evident. The professionals applauded at every intervention by the Turkish leader, and all questions were rather friendly. It was also surprising to see a city like Ankara almost empty, ghostly. They cut off a large part of the traffic, gave holidays to civil servants, teachers, and students, and suspended celebrations and ceremonies. All to prevent a banner against the regime or the summit. A clear contradiction with the Western democracies that the Atlantic Alliance claims to defend.

Furthermore, the Turkish leader gave his counterparts a surprise gift: a golden pistol, with bullets and a cleaning kit. A very symptomatic gift in times of rearmament, trivialization of war, and international military escalation. However, some European leaders have left the pistols in Turkey due to permits and airport controls, as well as ideological reasons.