President Trump arrives in Ankara this week for a NATO summit that will announce billions in defense deals, and the American taxpayer will foot the bill — again — for a European security arrangement that lets the continent fund socialist programs while Washington picks up the check.
A senior U.S. official confirmed that "defense-related deals worth billions of dollars" will be rolled out during the summit, according to Al-Monitor, though no details were provided on who sells, who buys, and which contractors profit. That is the real business of NATO — not the diplomatic photo-ops. Trump will press allies to increase defense spending, the official said, a message he has delivered repeatedly with mixed results. The Europeans, per Al-Monitor, remain jittery over "lingering transatlantic bitterness" from the Iran war and Trump's longstanding NATO criticism.
The sideline meetings are getting the press attention. Trump will sit down Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said after a Saturday call with Trump that there is "a real prospect of ending this war," now in its fifth year. The Chicago Tribune reported that a senior U.S. official described the battlefield as having "clearly frozen" with neither side making progress. Trump also spoke with Putin for 90 minutes on Saturday; Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Trump reaffirmed his readiness to help end hostilities. Trump is expected to follow up with Putin after seeing Zelenskyy.
Russia insists on full control of the Donbas. Ukraine rejects that. No one has explained how that gap closes — or what American commitment, if any, bridges it.
Trump will also meet Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Wednesday with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former insurgent leader whose forces ousted Bashar Assad. The White House offered no goals for the al-Sharaa meeting, the Chicago Tribune noted. Al-Monitor reported that Trump has repeatedly suggested Syria should fight Hezbollah — a proposal al-Sharaa has dismissed as misconstrued even as Trump repeats it.
The press framing is predictable: high diplomacy, careful statecraft. The Chicago Tribune and Al-Monitor both played the summit as a peace push. Neither outlet pressed on the cost. The billions in defense deals — the only concrete financial commitment on the table — received a single sentence from Al-Monitor and no mention from the Tribune. Fox News, for its part, was busy promoting a UFC documentary. The Gateway Pundit was debating whether God parted storm clouds around the White House. Sports Illustrated was wondering if Trump called FIFA to fix a red card.
Here is what matters: NATO was built to counter a Soviet threat that no longer exists. Every commitment the alliance makes comes with a price tag that competes with American needs at home. The defense deals announced this week will enrich contractors — follow the stock moves afterward — while the alliance's European members continue spending below their own commitments. Trump's urgency to end the Ukraine war is sound. But urgency without a defined American interest, a cost, and an exit is just another blank check.
The question hanging over Ankara is the same one that should have been asked decades ago: what exactly are Americans still paying for, and who besides Lockheed and Raytheon is getting rich off the answer?
