Dispatch from NATO, U.S. strikes Iran and Le Pen is back
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during bilateral meeting at the Bestepe Presidential Compound, following Trump’s arrival to attend the annual NATO Summit on July 7, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd coming to you from London.
Welcome to the Daily Open newsletter, a special edition featuring a dispatch from CNBC Presenter Steve Sedgwick in Ankara, Turkey, on the contentious NATO Summit.
What you need to know today
ANKARA, TURKEY — So how did NATO’s European leaders fare on Day One of the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, otherwise known as Operation “Keep Donald Trump on side”?
Well, not bad in terms of trying to showcase how much money Europe is spending on its own defense, with a raft of billion-dollar deals announced with some of the world’s largest military contractors.
In fact, if this conference was just about proving to the U.S. that there is a plan and it is being enacted — that the 5%-of-GDP spending commitment isn’t a distant mirage and that real efforts to get there are underway — then Tuesday might have been a slam dunk of a day for Europe.
CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick speaks with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey.
Michael Green
So-called “Trump Whisperer in Chief” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was once again at the forefront of proceedings, lauding the progress made in “shifting the burden” for Europe’s defense away from the other side of the Atlantic.
And yet, as that great European military tactician Helmuth Von Moltke said over a hundred years ago: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” (I prefer this version to Mike Tyson’s alternative: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”).
Not that President Donald Trump is the enemy here, but he is certainly a major challenge for European leaders trying to hold NATO together.
The problem is, whilst Rutte et al are trying to head off Trump on spending, the U.S. president brought up another old bone of contention on arrival and during his presser with host President Recep Erdogan of Turkey, in that he still felt the U.S. should control Greenland.
Greenland again! The European leaders must have thought that one had been put to bed in Davos in January, but now it’s back. Who saw that one coming? Mark? Ursula? Friedrich? Emmanuel?… No, I thought not.
Game of whack-a-mole, anyone?
Trump threats
The NATO newsflow just keeps on coming, with Trump making one of the boldest threats to his European allies to date: “We could remove all our soldiers out of Europe.” His comments at the NATO Summit came after he renewed his call for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, saying it “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.”
Ukraine has also topped the NATO agenda, amid a fresh wave of attacks between Kyiv and Moscow. Speaking to CNBC, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Ukraine was already winning by preserving its sovereignty for over four years, while…
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