US President Donald Trump will attend next month’s NATO leaders summit in Turkey, where he will press allies for major changes to the alliance and higher defense spending, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.
Rubio made the remarks while testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the State Department’s budget, saying the Trump administration had no intention of abandoning NATO but would continue to demand reforms. The summit is scheduled to be held in Ankara July 7-8.
“The president himself will be attending the next NATO, a meeting of heads of state where all of these points will be made clear,” Rubio said. “We’re still in NATO, but NATO needs significant changes, and the president has made that clear.”
Trump has long criticized NATO allies over defense spending and has been angered by what he sees as insufficient support for the US position in the war against Iran. Some NATO members, including Spain, have drawn US criticism for refusing to allow the use of its airbases in the conflict.
The summit’s location adds another layer of significance. Turkey borders Iran and has played a central role in NATO’s regional security posture during the conflict. It also has the second-largest army in NATO, according to the alliance’s secretary-general, making Ankara a key venue for talks on burden-sharing and collective defense.
Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952, but its relations with Washington have been strained in recent years. The biggest rupture came after Ankara bought Russia’s S-400 air defense system, prompting the United States in 2019 to begin removing Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program. US officials said at the time that Turkey could not operate both the Russian system and the fifth-generation aircraft.
Rubio’s testimony also touched on another sensitive issue inside the alliance: Greenland. Asked by Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride about Trump’s calls for the United States to own the semi-autonomous Danish territory, Rubio said talks with Denmark and Greenland over collective defense were “in a good place” but declined to discuss details publicly.
McBride asked Rubio whether he recognized that Greenland is part of Denmark. “For now,” Rubio replied.
“The president’s view is that it’s a lot easier to defend it when you have control and complete control of it,” Rubio said, adding that US talks with Denmark and Greenland were now taking place monthly and that he expected “pretty good news.”
The remarks point to a tense NATO summit in Ankara, with Trump expected to press allies on defense spending, reforms and strategic control while the alliance faces disputes over Iran, Greenland and long-running tensions between the United States and Turkey.