July 8 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump ended his time at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, with a press conference Wednesday in which he praised other leaders at the summit, called it “a great meeting” and said, “there was a lot of love in that room, a lot of unity.”
It was a marked change in tone. Earlier in the day, Trump had complained about NATO members’ defense spending, especially that of Spain, and said he wants to cut off all trade with the country. He called the Spanish “hopeless, bad people,” The New York Times reported.
He complained that NATO countries “didn’t want to help us with the number one state sponsor of terror, that’s Iran.” He called Iran’s leaders “scum” as the United States renewed attacks against Iran.
Trump also repeated Wednesday that he still wants to take Greenland from Denmark, remarks that led Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to say that her country would defend its territory.
But by his closing press conference, the U.S. president had some good things to say about NATO.
“They said, ‘We love you, sir, we love you,’ ” Trump said at the press conference Wednesday. “These are grown people saying that. Isn’t that nice? Maybe, I don’t know, maybe they’re trying to get to me, and in a way they did, because there was tremendous unity in that room.”
The U.S. president also praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukraine war effort earlier Wednesday despite criticizing Zelensky and Ukraine’s efforts against Russia in the past. He said the United States will allow Ukraine to produce Patriot air defense missiles, though helisted no specifics.
At the press conference, Trump praised Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but said he had made no decision about allowing Turkey to buy F-35 fighter jets from the United States, which he had hinted at before the summit. Trump had imposed the ban himself, and the move to reverse it could face opposition in Congress.
Also Wednesday, Trump and 31 other leaders of NATO countries affirmed their commitment to article 5, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on them all.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the summit created a “stronger, a fairer and a more capable NATO” and did not comment on Trump’s earlier criticisms.
“It not only makes us stronger in the end, we also come together,” Rutte said. “Today is evidence of that, and I always know that President Trump and the U.S. has completely committed to NATO.”
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