A Look Back at Trump’s Broadsides Against NATO Allies

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“President Trump has consistently criticized NATO allies for not spending enough on military budgets, questioning the alliance’s collective defense commitment under Article 5, and suggesting the U.S. might not defend allies like Montenegro. He has also downplayed NATO’s military contributions, particularly in Afghanistan, and threatened trade repercussions against countries like Spain for not increasing defense spending.

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President Trump has rarely missed an opportunity to castigate the Western military alliance, whose leaders he’s meeting this week, as weak and ineffective.

July 8, 2026

President Trump has consistently questioned one of NATO’s core provisions: the commitment laid out in Article 5 of its founding charter to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a longtime favorite punching bag of President Trump’s. At rallies and in interviews, he has repeatedly chastised members of the Western alliance for not spending enough on military budgets, criticized their armed forces as weak and suggested that the United States might not defend them in an attack.

As NATO leaders arrived in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday for their annual summit, Mr. Trump once again berated allies for not assisting the United States in its war against Iran. “Italy turned us down, and Germany turned us down, and France turned us down,” he said. He continued with another outburst at the summit on Wednesday morning, calling Spain “hopeless.”

Here is a recap of some of Mr. Trump’s broadsides against NATO over the years.

MILITARY spending

‘I’m very unhappy with Spain.’

Mr. Trump has repeatedly insulted members as “delinquent” for not spending enough on their military budgets, portraying them as freeloaders who benefited unfairly from Washington’s “one-way” protection.

In 2018, he called Americans “the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing.” Last year, when Spain became the only NATO member to not commit to a large increase in military spending, Mr. Trump called the country a “laggard” and mused about imposing higher tariffs in retaliation.

“I’m very unhappy with Spain,” Mr. Trump said in October. “I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did.”

In March, when Madrid refused to allow U.S. aircraft access to its military bases for the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Mr. Trump notched up the rhetoric by threatening to completely end all trade with Spain.

Neither threat has come to pass.

Collective defense

Russia should ‘do whatever the hell they want.’

Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned one of NATO’s core provisions: the commitment laid out in Article 5 of its founding charter to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all.

“If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them,” he told reporters last year.

Speaking at a campaign rally in 2024, Mr. Trump suggested that not only might the United States refuse to defend a NATO ally from Russian attack, but that his administration could applaud it.

In the remarks, Mr. Trump recounted his response to a hypothetical question from the leader of a large NATO country about how the United States would respond if Russia attacked a member that had refused to “pay up” during his first term in office.

“No, I would not protect you,” he recalled himself as saying. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You’ve got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

Defending Montenegro

‘A tiny country with very strong people’

Mr. Trump raised doubt over whether the United States would defend Montenegro, using it as an example to demonstrate his apparent misgivings over the commitment to defending NATO members.

“Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people,” he said in 2018, when asked on Fox News whether U.S. forces should go to war to defend the Balkan country, which was the most recent member of the alliance.

“They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III,” he said.

military contributions

‘We have never really asked anything of them.’

In January as NATO members refused to entertain Mr. Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, he reached for more insults.

“We have never really asked anything of them,” the president said in an interview with Fox Business. “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines.”

Mr. Trump’s remarks prompted widespread pushback in Britain, which lost 457 service members during two decades of fighting in the Afghanistan war after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the comments “insulting and frankly appalling.” That was the only time NATO’s collective security agreement was invoked.

Leo Sands is a correspondent for the Breaking News Hub of The New York Times based in London.“

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U.S. Strikes Iran and Reimposes Sanctions After Tanker Attacks - The New York Times

U.S. Strikes Iran and Reimposes Sanctions in Retaliation for Tanker Attacks

"The military operation came hours after the U.S. Treasury revoked a waiver allowing global sales of Iranian oil.

July 7, 2026, 7:02 p.m. ET

Negotiations between Iran and the United States have been paused until after multiday funeral ceremonies in Tehran for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed on the first day of the war.Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

The United States carried out airstrikes against several targets in Iran on Tuesday, hours after revoking a waiver allowing the sale of Iranian oil around the world, in a dual response to what the Pentagon said were Iranian attacks on three commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The military’s Central Command said on social media that U.S. forces “have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.”

The attacks on the commercial ships, including a Saudi oil tanker and a Qatari liquefied natural gas carrier in waters off the coast of Oman, threatened to disrupt the resumption of energy supplies from the region and derail the preliminary accord between Washington and Tehran to reopen the strategic waterway.

“Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the cease-fire,” Central Command said in a statement on social media.

Tehran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, and there was no immediate public comment from the authorities in Iran, where a dayslong program of funeral ceremonies is underway for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed on the first day of the war. Negotiations between Iran and the United States have been paused until after the funeral.

Although the United States and Iran have agreed to restore access to the strait — with President Trump declaring the waterway open to unrestricted navigation — the preliminary accord does not stipulate exactly how that should happen, and assigns to Iran the task of allowing the long-blocked traffic to get through. Iran has insisted that commercial ships sail near its shore, in a channel under Iran’s control, but many vessels are using American help to take a route near the Omani coast.

Without the waiver, which was issued by the U.S. Treasury, Iran can no longer sell its oil on the open market for dollars — at least not openly. The exemption was supposed to last for 60 days, the length of the cease-fire that Mr. Trump has celebrated, prematurely, as a peace agreement.

The United States long relied heavily on sanctions in an effort to limit Iran’s nuclear development. The waiver was part of a strategy to boost the accord’s chances of success by giving Iran a taste of the riches it could bring in from resumed oil sales around the globe. The theory was that those inside Iran seeking a peace deal would gain leverage over the military leadership that has opposed any agreement that might limit the country’s nuclear options.

Earlier on Tuesday, after the ships were attacked but before the American response, Mr. Trump seemed to downplay the conflict with Iran as he met with NATO leaders in Ankara, Turkey.

“The war with Iran — or whatever you call it, it’s not even a war,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s a military operation. It’s a denuclearization, that’s really what it is.”

Iranian state media reported early Wednesday that sounds of explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Sirik, all in Hormozgan Province along Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz. The province is central to Iran’s military and commercial presence around the strait, a key global shipping route.

Iran’s state broadcaster said the locations hit appeared to be the same ones targeted in earlier attacks during the conflict. The Hormozgan governor’s office said there had been no reports of civilian injuries so far.

The attacks on the three ships and the American military response on Tuesday threatened to tilt the region back into a spasm of violence that last surged nearly two weeks ago. The back-and-forth also lay bare the challenges to restoring prewar levels of traffic through the strait, a crucial conduit for oil and gas shipping.

The U.S. military conducted strikes on Iran on June 26 in retaliation for an Iranian attack in the Strait of Hormuz a day earlier, hours after Mr. Trump called the Iranian action a “foolish violation” of the fragile cease-fire between the two countries.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement at that time that it had struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites as a “powerful response” to the Iranian attack. The American strikes concluded after about 90 minutes, and included attacks by American fighter jets against four Iranian sites along the Strait of Hormuz and on Qeshm Island, a U.S. official said.

Mr. Trump said earlier in a post on social media that Iran had launched at least four one-way-attack drones on June 25, one of which hit the upper deck of a “of a large and very expensive Cargo Carrying Ship,” adding that the United States had knocked down three other drones. He added that the ship, though damaged, was able to continue on its way.

Iran’s strike on the vessel, the Ever Lovely, a container ship that was passing near the Omani side of the strait, appeared to be the first known Iranian attack on a commercial vessel since the signing of a preliminary peace agreement between Tehran and Washington.

David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager and Shirin Hakim contributed reporting.

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades. Contact him securely on Signal: @ericschmitt.36.

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U.S. Strikes Iran and Reimposes Sanctions After Tanker Attacks - The New York Times

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Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks | Washington DC | The Guardian

Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks

"Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to an analysis

Dharna Noor

Fireworks burst in Washington DC to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Photograph: J David Ake/Getty Images

Washington DC residents breathed in “unhealthy” air for hours after a 40-minute Independence Day fireworks show over the National Mall on Saturday night, with the country’s capital briefly recording the worst air quality of any major city in the world.

The highly emitting display, which the president called “spectacular”, came as the Trump administration rolls back an unprecedented number of pollution controls.

Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to a Tuesday analysis from the company Clarity Movement based on its network of 26 air quality sensors throughout the city in partnership with the local department of energy and environment. Every one of those sensors reached air quality levels which the Environmental Protection Agency deems “unhealthy for sensitive groups” during the event, the researchers found, with some recording even worse levels of emissions.

Levels of particulate matter peaked at 4am on Sunday, approximately five hours after the display concluded, according to the new analysis. It remained elevated for approximately five hours after reaching its peak, the authors found, with city officials issuing a Code Red alert.

Smoke hangs in the air as the Independence Day fireworks launch over Washington. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

“Outdoor air quality is unhealthy for seniors, kids, people with medical conditions,” the alert said. “General public may experience health issues. Limit time outside.”

The south-west region of DC experienced the highest pollution levels, the report’s authors found, probably because of its proximity to one of the fireworks launch sites in West Potomac park, as well as overnight meteorological conditions that trapped smoke over the area.

That highly polluted air probably drifted into Arlington, Virginia, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have sensors there to confirm it,” he said. “That’s exactly why expanding real-time air quality monitoring matters. Without comprehensive coverage, communities can be exposed to significant pollution events that go undetected.”

The air quality across the city could have been even worse in the aftermath of the display if it were not for thunderstorms that struck the city on Sunday evening.

Smoke hangs in the air as the Independence Day fireworks launch over Washington. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

“Despite the scale of the fireworks display, the city’s air quality avoided a worst-case scenario thanks to favorable weather conditions and the timing of the event,” said Lu.

The Fourth of July fireworks show, organized by the Trump-backed non-profit Freedom 250, began at 11pm on Saturday evening. It involved more than 850,000 fireworks launched from 10 sites across the capital, the organizers said. (A typical Independence Day show in DC involves just 17,000 shells.)

Trump on social media called the show “the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all”.

The fanfare came as the region was baking under an extreme heatwave, which brought triple-digit temperatures to the city hours earlier. For a time after the fireworks show, the city recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to AirNow, the Environmental Protection Agency website that reports air quality measurements from its monitoring stations.

Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said: “It was the largest and greatest firework display in the history of our country to properly celebrate America’s 250th birthday! Every year, fireworks on the Fourth of July cause short-term spikes in air quality across the United States, including Washington, DC. This was not unique to the 250th fireworks celebrations in our nation’s capital.”

The Guardian has contacted Freedom 250 for comment.

Americans shoot nearly 300m lb of fireworks into the atmosphere every year, according to the American Lung Association, letting off lung-harming gases such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The Trump administration has, since re-entering office, engaged in a wide-ranging assault on pollution controls, exempting polluting facilities from emissions regulations, boosting coal power, and halting the consideration of the value of lives saved when restricting fine particulate matter and ozone. On 4 July, the president also pardoned nine individuals convicted of violations related to the Clean Air Act, including people found to have tampered with emissions control equipment in cars or selling parts to bypass air pollution standards."

Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks | Washington DC | The Guardian

 

Why Ghana Rejected Ramaphosa's Planned State Visit

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“Ghana rejected South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s planned state visit due to rising xenophobic attacks against African migrants in South Africa. The decision underscores Ghana’s priority to protect its citizens abroad, with around 1,000 Ghanaians already repatriated and another 900 registered to return home. The postponement highlights the delicate balance between maintaining bilateral relations and addressing domestic concerns about citizen safety.

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Ghana rejected a planned visit by South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa over rising xenophobic attacks and concerns for its citizens.

Kofi Oppong Kyekyeku

South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa. Photo via Polity.org.za.

Ghana’s decision to decline a proposed state visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa marks one of the clearest diplomatic signals yet that the recent wave of xenophobic violence in South Africa has moved beyond a consular issue into a matter of bilateral concern.

Although officials insist relations between Ghana and South Africa remain cordial, the postponement of a high-profile presidential visit underscores the extent to which the safety of Ghanaian nationals has become a foreign policy priority.

According to diplomatic sources cited by the Daily Graphic, the planned August visit was turned down after weeks of anti-foreigner violence in parts of South Africa forced the repatriation of around 1,000 Ghanaians, while another 900 have reportedly registered to return home.

The situation has placed Ghana’s government under growing pressure to demonstrate that it is taking decisive steps to protect its citizens abroad.

Security Concerns Take Centre Stage

Sources familiar with the discussions said Ghana’s decision was driven by more than diplomatic symbolism. Officials were reportedly concerned about the welfare of Ghanaians still living in South Africa, as well as the broader security implications surrounding a visit by President Ramaphosa while emotions remain high.

Government sources indicated that welcoming the South African leader during an ongoing wave of attacks against African migrants could be interpreted as overlooking the experiences of affected Ghanaians. There were also concerns that public anger could create an uncomfortable atmosphere or even pose security risks during such a visit.

The message appears to be that meaningful action to protect foreign nationals must come before ceremonial engagements at the highest political level.

Death of Ghanaian Deepens Diplomatic Dispute

The diplomatic tension intensified following the death of a Ghanaian national in South Africa at the end of June.

Initial reports from Ghana linked the killing to the anti-immigrant demonstrations that peaked on June 30, prompting strong official reactions and public concern.

South Africa has, however, firmly rejected that account.

Authorities in South Africa maintain that the victim was shot on June 29 during what they describe as an extortion-related incident at a barbershop in Nyanga, Cape Town. According to South African officials, the killing had no connection to the xenophobic protests.

The disagreement over the circumstances of the death has evolved into a diplomatic dispute, with South Africa’s Ministry of Justice reportedly describing Ghana’s official characterization of the incident as “factually incorrect.”

Such public disagreement between two governments is unusual and reflects the sensitivity surrounding migration, public safety and diplomatic accountability.

Balancing Diplomacy With Domestic Expectations

Ghana now faces the delicate task of protecting bilateral relations while responding to domestic expectations that the government should stand firmly behind its citizens overseas.

The reported repatriation figures have heightened public concern, particularly given the longstanding economic and cultural links between Ghana and South Africa. Thousands of Ghanaians have built businesses, careers and families in South Africa over the years, making any deterioration in security a matter of national interest.

By declining the state visit rather than suspending broader diplomatic engagement, Ghana appears to be signaling that its concerns are focused on current conditions rather than the overall relationship between the two countries.

Diplomatic sources indicate that Ghana has urged South African authorities to take concrete measures to curb the attacks and provide credible assurances regarding the safety of Ghanaian nationals before discussions on a presidential visit resume.

Broader Implications for Africa

The development also raises wider questions about the African Union’s long-standing vision of continental integration and the free movement of people.

Xenophobic violence has periodically strained relations between South Africa and several African countries over the past two decades. Each outbreak has reignited debates about migrant protection, economic inequality and the responsibilities of governments to safeguard foreign nationals living within their borders.

The latest decision demonstrates that the welfare of Ghanaian citizens abroad can directly influence high-level diplomatic engagements.

Despite the current tensions, both Ghanaian and South African sources insist the relationship between the two countries remains fundamentally strong. Trade, investment and cooperation continue across multiple sectors, suggesting neither government is seeking a prolonged diplomatic confrontation.

For now, however, the postponement of President Ramaphosa’s proposed visit serves as a reminder that diplomatic goodwill can be tested when the safety of citizens becomes a pressing national concern. Until confidence is restored and stronger guarantees are provided for Ghanaians living in South Africa, Ghana appears determined to place citizen protection ahead of ceremonial diplomacy.” 

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