US President Donald Trump arrives for a luncheon in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, July 6, 2026 in Washington, DC, USA.
Sean Hsu | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump is heading to Turkey to attend a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit as the alliance comes under strain from Russia’s continued military aggression against Ukraine and America’s growing insistence that NATO members urgently increase defense spending.
These pressing concerns come on top of a lingering dispute over the United States’ war against Iran and an earlier attempt to seize Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark.
Mr. Trump is the central figure in all these issues.
“I can imagine a lot of problems where this could go wrong,” Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution told CNBC’s “The Exchange” Monday during a preview of the summit.
O’Hanlon said positive outcomes from the meeting would include NATO progressing military cost sharing and finding more ways to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Progress on the former goal appears to be within reach, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte telling a summit in May that the challenge ahead is to “translate Allied commitments into concrete results.”
However, President Trump has frequently made abusive comments about NATO, including that member states have not heeded calls from the United States to pass through the economically important Strait of Hormuz during operations against Iran, making it highly likely that talks will break down.
“I’m not expecting anything great, but I would welcome even incremental progress and no explosion,” O’Hanlon said.
president trump’s schedule
White House press secretary Anna Kelly told reporters in a phone call to preview the trip that Trump is scheduled to leave the United States on Monday night and arrive in Ankara on Tuesday afternoon. He will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan upon arrival, and after the arrival ceremony he will participate in bilateral talks with President Erdoğan, followed by a dinner with NATO leaders.
After posing for a “family photo” with leaders on Wednesday morning, Trump will take part in a working meeting before meeting with Zelenskiy and Syrian President Ahmed Hussein al-Shalah.
After holding a press conference, President Trump will leave Ankara for the White House, Kelly said.
russian attack
U.S. President Donald Trump waves aboard Air Force One as it departs from Reading Regional Airport in Reading, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 2026.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News | Getty Images
On Sunday, Russia shelled the Ukrainian capital Kiev with dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and media reports.
The attack, which occurred on the eve of a summit that President Zelenskyy was scheduled to attend, ensured that the war became an urgent focus for the 32-nation alliance. The alliance already considers Putin’s war in Ukraine “the greatest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.”
The day before the airstrike, Trump and Putin had a “businesslike and constructive” telephone conversation led by the United States that lasted nearly 90 minutes, the Kremlin said.
During the phone call, Trump emphasized that Russia and the United States could realize “tremendous potential for mutually beneficial cooperation” once the war in Ukraine ends, but Putin painted a rosy picture of Russia’s military efforts, describing them as “the real situation on the battlefield,” according to Yuri Ushakov, a close aide to Putin.
President Trump also spoke that day with Zelensky, who later declared that the attack on Kiev highlights Ukraine’s dire need for additional military aid, particularly from the United States.
President Zelenskiy said early Monday that “the United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terrorism.”
He wants member states to leave the NATO summit with a commitment to step up support for Ukraine’s air defenses. The White House said the president is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Trump in Turkey on Wednesday afternoon.
But Trump, who has clashed with Zelensky and praised Putin, may not agree that the solution to the four-year war is to further strengthen Ukraine.
On Monday morning, President Trump insisted that the Russian leader was indeed trying to end the war when asked why Putin did not feel pressured to avoid hostilities after the meeting.
“I think he’s feeling the pressure,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “He wants to end this issue, Ukraine wants to end it, and we are in talks and will see if we can end it.”
“President Putin wants this to end, and I will convey that very strongly,” Trump continued, adding that the two had a “good dialogue.”
“And President Zelenskiy actually wants to end this issue now. We are going to go to NATO and talk about it. And I think we will make it happen. I think we will end it,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s any significant evidence that President Putin is close to a deal. I hope President Trump is right, but I haven’t seen any evidence yet,” Brookings’ O’Hanlon told CNBC.
NATO spending
NATO members already agreed last year to increase spending from 2% of GDP to 5% of GDP by 2035, but the Trump administration is urging countries to scale up to that goal as soon as possible.
“The goal is for Europe to take over the conventional defense of the continent,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker told CNBC early Monday. “We’re not going away, we’re just becoming less active.”
A senior U.S. official told reporters in a phone call previewing the summit that “multibillion-dollar announcements” were expected while on the sidelines in Ankara.
