(The Daily Caller)—President Donald Trump is in Turkey to make his expectations clear to NATO allies as the Russo-Ukrainian War and conflicts in the Middle East continue.

Trump left to attend the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Monday night and arrived for the summit early on Tuesday, according to multiple X posts from official Trump admin sources. The summit will focus on key issues like artificial intelligence (AI), the Russo-Ukrainian War, NATO spending and peace in the Middle East.

ADVERTISEMENT

Diplomats and leaders from 32 NATO countries will be attending the summit with Trump, according to a NATO press release on Tuesday.

“President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear, and he has consistently said that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own defense,” White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “President has effectively restored America’s standing on the world stage and strengthened relationships abroad – but he simultaneously will never allow the United States to be treated unfairly and taken advantage of by so-called ‘allies.’”

The NATO press office, and the Turkish embassy in Washington, and the Department of War did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump was greeted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan immediately upon his arrival.

Shortly after Trump arrived in Turkey, he announced in an official meeting with Erdoğan that the U.S. would be removing sanctions from Turkey, according to a video posted by Fox News on X.

BREAKING: President Trump announce it's time to remove U.S. sanctions on Turkey, saying his administration is working with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior officials to make it happen.

"There's plenty of people who can sanction… We don't want to have sanctioned… pic.twitter.com/9iRINRI9hP

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 7, 2026

Who’s Going To Pay The Check?

One key focus of the summit is the new NATO 3.0 initiative. The NATO 3.0 initiative is pushing  European nations to carry their weight in NATO spending.

“I think everyone understands, or at least the major players understand, that real things have to happen now, so we may use the point,” former Czech Republic Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan Lipavský, said during a Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) press briefing on June 23. “We may use names like the name NATO 3.0 or whatever, but at the end of the day, it will be about Europe, especially European countries putting money into defense.”

U.S. European Command explained in a  June 3 press release that US troop and equipment cuts are part of the new “NATO 3.0” initiative.

“When it comes to the capabilities the United States will no longer pledge, there are largely capabilities available that other Allies already have, or will have in the near future,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said during a NATO press conference on June 17. “And we have already seen that, as the United States has adjusted its pledged contributions, other Allies have stepped up to contribute more – in some cases completely, in some cases nearly.”

“I think that [NATO 3.0] means a lot of things to a lot of different people, so it would be helpful if the summit communicate, or in some of the speeches that are given around it, try to make a little bit more clear what that means and what that’s going to look like, as again the alliance moves from burden sharing and burden shifting,” former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security David Cattler said during the CEPA press briefing.

The United States remained NATO’s dominant defense spender at an estimated $980 billion in 2025, compared with $92.8 billion for the United Kingdom and $68.9 billion for France, while the smallest spenders included Montenegro at $188 million, North Macedonia at $402 million and Albania at $570 million, according to estimates from the Atlantic Council.

The U.S. military was reportedly planning to pull aircraft, drones and ships from NATO crisis response allocations, Reuters reported on June 17, citing an anonymous military source. Rutte assured reporters during the June 17 NATO press conference that NATO allies would be able to make up most of these losses, although their combined value is worth roughly $40 billion to $50 billion, according to estimates.

However, it appears that this proposed move may have been cancelled, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, which cited anonymous individuals familiar with the matter. However, it remains unclear if the U.S. has actually removed assets from NATO crisis response allocations.

Another key aspect of the NATO meeting will be the discussion of technological dissemination between allies, to allow the integration of NATO systems.

“When we look at Ukraine, we see the scale and how rapid innovation can take place, but we also see that interoperability across platforms will be a challenge when you try to take the Ukraine model and put it onto NATO, so that is absolutely enormous,” former Senior Director for Defense Policy & Strategy at the US National Security Council Jason Israel said during the CEPA briefing. “In summary, you want all of your robots to be able to talk to one another with secure data transmission, and that’s going to be a challenge for the alliance.”

The use and development of AI is going to be a key part of this new technological push in NATO, as massive amounts of data are incorporated into the operations of militaries across the alliance.

“What NATO needs is a cloud-enabled data pool, rapid data distribution operations at the edge, corresponding communications, we need AI processing in a lot of locations to be able to deal with that data distribution, that understanding and use at speed, and that’s a challenge for just about every military right now,” Cattler said during the CEPA meeting. “Well, with 32 different nations, they will all adopt AI in different ways … Are you proposing to automate? I can guarantee you, not every Capital will subscribe to that for national security purposes or for deterrence and defense purposes.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.