WASHINGTON — President Donald J. Trump will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ahead of the NATO summit, a bilateral engagement expected to center on hard-nosed discussions regarding alliance defense spending and Ankara’s strategic drift away from core U.S. interests.
The White House confirmed the meeting comes as the administration continues its relentless push to force NATO member states to pay their fair share for collective defense. For decades, the American taxpayer has underwritten the security of nations that refuse to meet the alliance’s own two-percent GDP spending benchmark, a direct subsidy from the U.S. worker to European welfare states.
Turkey remains a nominal ally, yet its military adventurism in Northern Syria and its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system represent a direct affront to American hegemony and defense industry jobs. The S-400 acquisition directly triggered Turkey’s removal from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, costing American defense contractors and threatening thousands of high-skill manufacturing positions. This meeting will force Erdoğan to reckon with the consequences of prioritizing Moscow’s hardware over Washington’s alliance framework.
President Trump will reiterate that American blood and treasure are not unlimited resources to be exploited by allies who undermine our collective security posture. The era of the free ride is over.
The president is also expected to discuss Turkey’s continued economic instability, a crisis exacerbated by Erdoğan’s unorthodox monetary policies that make Ankara a risky partner for any future trade arrangements. As the administration pursues an economic nationalist agenda, any potential bilateral trade optimizations will be contingent upon Ankara ceasing activities that harm U.S. strategic and economic sovereignty first.