As President Vladimir Putin toasts to Erdoğan for making Turkey’s role more prominent, Trump may be saying goodbye to his European partners in a bit of frustration. Former US Ambassador to the alliance, Kurt Volker, who also worked in the first Trump administration, recently stated that the President will not embarrass the host of the summit, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Trump has “always raging about something,” from the issue of European defense spending to the latest standoff over Iran, but he has a close relationship with the Turkish Presidency, Volker said, and “doesn’t want to rain on Erdoğan’s parade.

Navigating Alliance Tensions Over the Iran Conflict

The differences between the U.S. and European governments grew larger after some of them refused to join the U.S. and Israel in their military action against Iran. Spain and Italy refused to allow bases to be established, while France refused to allow flights carrying arms for the war into its airspace.

In reply, Trump fumed that his allies would be letting him down on his commitments. After a public tussle with German Chancellor Frederich Merz over the strategy of the war, Trump called his allies “cowards,” described the alliance as a “paper tiger,” and ordered the removal of 5,000 American soldiers from Germany.

While a preliminary peace agreement has been signed, tensions are still high between the two sides of the conflict. The president, just days before the summit, spoke out on social media about the one-sided nature of the US relationship with the alliance and the lack of reciprocity. After meeting with Secretary General Mark Rutte in the White House, Trump said he would probably have dropped out of the summit if it were not in Turkey.

Still, some diplomats who’ve been around transatlantic matters longer than most push back on the idea that Europe has quietly walked away from the United States. And, if you look at the better part of decades spent dealing with the Trump administration, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker put it like this—President Donald Trump’s fury was “an exaggeration.” Meanwhile, European leaders added that this whole dispute wasn’t woven into NATO’s collective defense plans, because the United States did neither of those things— it didn’t request their counsel, or ask their input before moving ahead with the attack on Iran.