In the end, nobody could say they were surprised by his bitter tirade against old ally Germany

Donald Trump predicted he would have “an interesting time” at this week’s Nato summit. European leaders worried that the US president would go on the offensive against America’s traditional allies. In the end, nobody could say they were surprised.

Breakfast had not even been served in Brussels on Wednesday morning when Trump launched into a bitter tirade against an old ally, declaring that Germany was “totally controlled by Russia”. At a pre-summit breakfast meeting with the Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, Trump accused Berlin of “being a captive of the Russians” because of its dependence on energy supplies.

Without waiting for the clicking press cameras to leave the room, he declared that “numerous of the countries” were going out and “making a pipeline deal with Russia where they are paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia”. A two-minute clip posted on his Twitter feed broadcast the repetitive two-minute-plus tirade to his 53.4m followers.



Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, looked at his boss and looked away, focusing on his empty plate. Stoltenberg, former prime minister of Norway, appeared to be trying to get a word in edgeways.

The stage was set for probably the most fraught meeting in the 69-year history of the alliance – and Trump had not even arrived at Nato headquarters. As if to remind the US leader of what the alliance was meant to be about, the slogan “we are allies”, was written in big letters on the wall near the arrivals area.



Making her entrance, Angela Merkel hit back at Trump, by reflecting on her earlier years in Communist East Germany, dominated by the Soviet Union. “I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions and that’s very good,” she said.

In contrast, Trump was bubbling with praise for French president Emmanuel Macron, declaring that he had a “tremendous relationship” with Macron, who was “changing a lot of things around and I guess that had to happen”. After Macron spoke in French, Trump laughed and said he did not understand was said, but “it sounded beautiful”.

Theresa May, who faces an imminent four-day state visit by the US president, managed to avoid being asked about Trump. But she could not avoid being asked about Brexit.



Wherever she goes in the world, the British prime minister cannot escape the UK’s EU exit negotiations and her warring party. Explaining her Brexit compromise in typical style, May said: “The Chequers deal is a plan that has been put together, it’s been agreed by government.” She promised that more detail would be revealed in her forthcoming white paper.

Asked about the football – England play Croatia in a World Cup semi-final on Wednesday night – May wished the team good luck. Unprompted, she revealed that she had swapped shirts with Croatia’s prime minister, avoiding any repeat of the awkward moment she had at a recent EU summit, when she was caught empty-handed by an early gift of a T-shirt from Belgium’s prime minister.

The ceremonial parts of the Nato summit appeared to pass off smoothly. Trump arrived for the required family photo of Nato leaders, seemingly in deep conversation with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, fresh from being sworn in as Turkey’s president, under a new system that grants him vastly increased powers.

Trump was placed next to May in the photo. Both gave the impression of animated conversation, one day after Trump said that the UK was in “turmoil” and praised Boris Johnson, who had abruptly resigned from May’s government after trashing the prime minister’s Brexit compromise.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump and Theresa May take part in the family photo at the Nato Summit. Photograph: Canadian Press/Rex/Shutterstock

But this year saw no brush-by insults to EU leaders, such as the shove Trump gave to Montenegro’s prime minister at the 2017 summit. Soldiers from the 29 armies of the alliance stood in the sun under 29 national and one Nato flag. A military brass band played the Nato hymn, a sonorous melody with soaring horns, which has been the official anthem since January. Trump and the other leaders looked up to the sky to see 25 military helicopters rumbling overhead for the traditional flypast.



From TV it might have looked like a normal summit, albeit with a former reality TV star-turned commander in chief. Soldiers marched in perfect formation. Later on, a pre-prepared summit communique was published. But no one was under any illusion, one day after Trump declared that his meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin may seem easy compared to a summit with the US’s long-standing allies.

As the meeting got under way, Trump made a calculated show to demonstrate what he wanted his domestic and international audience to know he really cared about by firing off a couple of tweets about American farmers. “I am in Brussels, but always thinking about our farmers,” Trump tweeted from Nato’s headquarters. “Soybeans fell 50% from 2012 to my election. Farmers have done poorly for 15 years. Other countries’ trade barriers and tariffs have been destroying their businesses.”

US soybean farmers could be hit by the fallout from Trump’s trade war with China, after Beijing announced it would levy 25% tariffs on US goods, including soybeans, in retaliation for US tariffs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump declared that he had a ‘special relationship with France’s president Emmanuel Macron. Photograph: Pool/Reuters

Ignoring the risk facing midwest farmers, Trump wrote: “I will open things up, better than ever before, but it can’t go too quickly. I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers, and will win!”



But it was Trump’s aggressive broadside against Germany that dominated the summit, even if the president brushed that aside. “We have a tremendous relationship” with Germany, Trump declared at a bilateral meeting that the White House described as a “POTUS pull-aside”.

“We’re having a great meeting and discussing military expenditure, we’re talking about trade. We have a very, very good relationship with the chancellor. We have a tremendous relationship with Germany. You’ve had tremendous success and I congratulate you, tremendous success,” Trump told watching journalists.

He and Merkel sat at least one-arms length apart on separate sofas, without looking at each other. Trump carried on: “And I believe our trade will increase and lots of other things will increase. But we’ll see what happens over the next period of a few months.”

For now, it feels as if the entire transatlantic alliance is holding its breath to see what happens.