2026-07-07T04:01:26.903Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/politics/trump-nato-troops-europe
土耳其安卡拉——
今年春季，唐纳德·特朗普总统在白宫会议上怒不可遏，指责北约盟友拒绝参与他对伊朗的军事行动，当时他萌生了一个想法。
据两名知情人士透露，他曾问道：如果将驻欧美军削减三分之一，会怎样？这能否向所谓的盟友传递恰当的讯息？
就在特朗普提出撤军想法前后，五角大楼突然取消了两次美军向欧洲的部署，并下令撤回该大陆的其他人员。
据两名知情人士透露，美国国防部长皮特·赫格斯原计划在6月的北约会议上宣布更大幅度的削减计划，削减规模可能达到特朗普提出的三分之一。但在与其他高级政府官员磋商后，计划发生了变动，赫格斯转而宣布将对驻欧美军进行为期六个月的评估。
“这项评估中，有些国家会不及格，有些国家则会表现优异，”他当时警告称。
随着总统本周前往土耳其出席备受期待的北约峰会，他的愤怒和威胁正在给这个拥有77年历史的联盟带来压力。特朗普向来对承诺美国支持欧洲防务不太热心，过去12个月里愈发怀疑北约的价值，声称美国正在为欧洲的安全买单，而他的欧洲老盟友在他对伊朗发动战争后却没有站在他这边。
他从未明确排除退出北约的可能，并持续质疑北约对美国的价值。
特朗普还威胁要从北约成员国手中夺取格陵兰岛，并时不时对俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京表现出顺从态度，一些欧洲官员担心普京可能计划在北约领土采取行动，以考验该联盟的决心。
所有这些都为本周的峰会营造了紧张氛围，特朗普曾表示他是勉强参会。上个月在与北约秘书长马克·吕特的会晤中，他称自己参会只是因为峰会在土耳其首都由雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安总统主办，而他视埃尔多安为朋友。一名知情人士透露，曾私下向特朗普及其团队暗示，尽管有美国领导人的这一理由，但不出席峰会会对埃尔多安不尊重。
“安卡拉峰会正是我们的盟友挺身而出的时刻，我知道这正是特朗普总统所期望的，”特朗普的北约事务大使马修·惠特克说道。
欧洲各国领导人希望在安卡拉会议结束时不会爆发重大冲突，他们计划提出新的防务承诺以平息特朗普的怒火。吕特在6月访问白宫期间也试图缓和任何分歧。
但在过去一周的担忧私下谈话中，多名官员表示，鉴于特朗普的糟糕情绪，他们无法确定峰会能否顺利进行。总统曾在闭门会议上愤怒抱怨北约缺乏支持，这番言论也波及到了公开场合。
“当美欧关系并非互惠时，美国继续走这种单边道路实在荒谬。他们根本没站在我们这边！”峰会召开前几天，特朗普在社交媒体上写道。
欧洲各国领导人对特朗普的批评予以反驳，指出他们在伊朗战争爆发前并未被咨询。许多国家已承诺提供军事援助以重新开放霍尔木兹海峡，尽管这条关键航道的紧张局势延缓了商业交通的全面恢复。
美国高级官员表示，霍尔木兹海峡问题将在安卡拉峰会上讨论，但他们对欧洲国家是否具备军事能力为相关行动做出有意义贡献表示怀疑。
特朗普与欧洲领导人的争端并未打乱上个月在法国举行的七国集团峰会。相反，受伊朗谈判取得积极进展的鼓舞，特朗普似乎与那些过去几个月他一直在指责的领导人相处融洽。
但离开后不久，他就与意大利总理乔治娅·梅洛尼再起争执，他称梅洛尼曾“恳求”与他合影。梅洛尼指责他编造故事，而特朗普并未任由紧张局势平息，反而在周日暗示他需要对梅洛尼申请“限制令”。一名美国官员表示，这两位此前关系友好的领导人之间的紧张动态，为峰会增添了另一层不确定性。
在椭圆形办公室与吕特的会晤中，特朗普再次罗列了对北约盟友的种种不满。
“只要做到忠诚就好。我只想要他们的忠诚。我们不需要他们的钱，什么都不需要。我们拥有世界上最强大的军事力量，毫无疑问，但我只想要忠诚，”他说道。
吕特在过去一年半里一直在设法应对特朗普的情绪起伏，成效喜忧参半。他试图用显示欧洲防务开支增长的图表来缓和特朗普的敌意，并将这一增长归因于特朗普施加的压力。
“这张图表展示的是特朗普万亿美元效应，”他曾在某个场合解释道。
他温和地反驳了特朗普对伊朗问题的愤怒，坚称“确实存在个别让你深感失望的情况，但总体而言，你的欧洲盟友一直在场。”
吕特曾是荷兰前首相，他对特朗普的奉承偶尔会招致嘲笑。去年在海牙举行的北约峰会上，他也曾采用类似策略，且大多奏效。特朗普离开时对欧洲各国领导人赞不绝口，并重申了美国对北约集体防御协议的承诺。
欧洲官员希望在安卡拉重演这一幕，但对许多人来说，这样的结果似乎越来越渺茫。特朗普并未放弃对格陵兰岛的图谋，他反复辩称美国为了国家安全需要该岛，尽管吕特在1月制定了一项计划，加强欧洲在这个自治丹麦领地的防务。
“截至目前，我们找到的唯一解决方案是美国收购格陵兰岛，但我们将继续探索其他方案来解决这些考量，”一名美国高级官员在峰会前表示。
过去几个月里，美国撤军的速度超出了许多欧洲官员的预期，尽管特朗普多年来一直威胁要减少美国在欧洲大陆的军事存在。
今年春季，五角大楼宣布暂停原定的波兰驻军轮换时，特朗普似乎措手不及，但他还是批准了从德国撤军5000人的决定。德国总理弗里德里希·梅尔茨在撤军行动前不久曾表示，美国在伊朗战争中正遭受“羞辱”。
“我们正在进行态势评估，而这场态势评估很可能会导致我们调整部署，这并不令人意外，”一名美国高级政府官员在安卡拉峰会前表示。
尽管如此，这种反复无常的举动还是让一些欧洲人感到困惑，他们正试图规划一个美国不再为欧洲大陆提供主要安全保障的未来。
“此次峰会为美国提供了一个机会，可以明确其计划从欧洲撤出哪些力量，并与盟友协商如何填补能力空白。问题是，特朗普政府是否准备好这么做，”卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员斯蒂芬·韦特海姆在最近一篇关于北约的讨论文章中写道。“盟友们需要从华盛顿方面明确哪些力量会留下，哪些会撤走，以及何时撤走。而要做到这一点，华盛顿必须下定决心。”
许多人担心美国军事态势的任何调整都会助长俄罗斯的气焰，尽管俄罗斯在乌克兰的攻势已经停滞。乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基将出席安卡拉的领导人晚宴，但不会参加峰会正式会议——这一信号表明，乌克兰加入北约的雄心壮志迄今仍未实现。不过，他将于周三与特朗普单独会面。
因伊朗战争而分心的特朗普，最近对泽连斯基对抗远强于自己的对手的能力印象深刻。欧洲各国计划承诺提供数百亿欧元的军事援助支持乌克兰，以此向特朗普表明他们致力于为这场战斗提供资金。
所有这些举措能否在本周的会议上维护和平，还有待观察。
CNN的黑利·布里茨基为本报道贡献了内容。
Trump mused about cutting troops in Europe by a third to send a message to NATO
2026-07-07T04:01:26.903Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/politics/trump-nato-troops-europe
Ankara, Turkey—
As President Donald Trump was raging during a White House meeting this spring that fellow members of the NATO alliance had refused to join his military operation in Iran, he had a thought.
What if he cut American forces in Europe by a third, he asked, according to two people familiar with the conversation. Would that send the so-called allies the right message?
Around the time Trump floated his withdrawal idea, the Pentagon abruptly canceled two US military deployments to Europe and ordered the removal of other personnel from the continent.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth planned to announce at a June NATO meeting even steeper cuts that could add up to the one-third reduction Trump raised, according to two people familiar with the matter. But the plan changed after consultations with other senior administration officials, and Hegseth instead unveiled a six-month review of US forces in Europe.
“It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors,” he warned at the time.
As the president heads to Turkey this week for a hotly anticipated NATO summit, his fury — and his threats — are straining the 77-year-old alliance. Never particularly enthusiastic in pledging US support for Europe’s defense, Trump has grown even more skeptical in the last 12 months, claiming America’s oldest allies weren’t there when he needed them after he launched a war in Iran.
He has never explicitly ruled out attempting to withdraw from NATO, and consistently questions its value for the United States, which he argues is underwriting Europe’s security.
Trump has also threatened to seize Greenland from a fellow NATO member, and has shown periodic deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who some European officials fear could be planning operations in NATO territory as a test of the alliance’s resolve.
That has all generated a fraught atmosphere for this week’s summit, which Trump has said he is attending begrudgingly. In a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last month, he said he was going only because it is being hosted in Turkey’s capital by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he considers a friend. A source familiar with the matter said it was privately indicated to Trump and his team that not going to the summit, despite the US leader’s reasoning, would be disrespectful to Erdoğan.
“This Ankara summit is really the time for our allies to step up, and I know that that’s what President Trump is expecting,” said Trump’s ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker.
European leaders hope to exit the Ankara meeting without a major explosion, planning new defense pledges to allay Trump’s anger. Rutte also tried to smooth over any discord during his June visit to the White House.
But in worried private conversations over the past week, many officials said they could not be sure whether the summit would go smoothly given the president’s sour mood. The president has complained angrily behind closed doors about the lack of NATO support, and that rhetoric has spilled into his public remarks.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!!” Trump wrote on social media in the days ahead of the summit.
European leaders have balked at Trump’s criticism, noting they were not consulted before the Iran war began. Many have pledged military help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though tensions in the critical waterway have slowed a full restoration of commercial traffic.
Senior American officials said the strait would be a point of discussion in Ankara, though they voiced skepticism that European nations had the military capabilities to contribute meaningfully to any efforts.
Trump’s dispute with European leaders did not derail a Group of Seven summit in France last month. Instead, Trump — buoyed by positive progress in Iran talks — seemed to get on well even with counterparts he’d spent the previous months castigating.
But shortly after leaving, he renewed a feud with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who he claimed had “begged” him for a photo. She accused him of fabricating the story and, instead of letting the tension die down, on Sunday he suggested he needed a “restraining order” against her. One US official said the strained dynamic between the two formerly friendly leaders was adding another layer of uncertainty to the summit.
And during his meeting with Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump renewed his litany of complaints about NATO allies.
“Just be loyal. I just want their loyalty. We don’t need their money, we don’t need anything. We have the most powerful military in the world, by far, but I just want loyalty,” he said.
Rutte, who has spent the past year and a half working with mixed success to manage Trump’s moods, attempted to cushion the president’s hostility with charts showing an increase in European defense spending, which he attributed to Trump’s pressure.
“This chart is about the Trump trillion,” he explained at one point.
He gently pushed back on the US leader’s anger over Iran, insisting that “there have been isolated cases about which you are really disappointed but, generally speaking, your European allies have been there.”
Rutte, a former prime minister of the Netherlands whose fawning praise of Trump has earned him occasional ridicule, used a similar tactic at last year’s NATO summit in The Hague, and it mostly worked. Trump departed praising European leaders and reaffirming his commitment to NATO’s collective defense agreement.
European officials aspire to a repeat in Ankara, but such an outcome appears to many like a fading hope. Trump has not given up his designs on Greenland, repeatedly arguing the US needs it for national security, despite a scheme devised by Rutte in January to scale up European defenses on the self-governing Danish territory.
“As of now, the only solution that we found as to how to solve that is with the United States acquiring Greenland, but we’ll continue to explore other options to address those considerations,” a senior US official said before the summit.
Over the last several months, the US has withdrawn troops quicker than many European officials imagined, even though Trump has been threatening for years to reduce the American footprint on the continent.
While Trump this spring appeared caught off guard by a Pentagon announcement it was halting a scheduled troop rotation through Poland, he upheld a decision to pull 5,000 troops from Germany. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had said shortly before the move that the United States was being “humiliated” in its war with Iran.
“There should be no surprise that we’re doing a posture review, or surprise that that posture review very well may lead to us adjusting our posture,” a senior administration official said before the Ankara summit.
Still, the back-and-forth has confused some Europeans, who are trying to plan for a day when the United States no longer provides the bulk of the continent’s security.
“The summit provides an opportunity for the United States to specify what it plans to pull out of Europe and consult with allies on how capability gaps can be filled. The question is whether the Trump administration is prepared to do that,” wrote Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a recent discussion on NATO. “The allies need clarity from Washington on what will stay, what will go, and when. And for that to happen, Washington needs to make up its mind.”
Many fear any changes to the American military posture could embolden Russia, whose offensive in Ukraine has stalled. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a leaders dinner in Ankara, but won’t participate in the summit’s meetings — a signal that Kyiv’s ambitions to one day join the alliance remain unrealized. He will, however, meet individually with Trump on Wednesday.
Trump, whose attention was diverted by the war in Iran, has recently sounded impressed by Zelensky’s ability to keep up the fight against a much larger adversary. European nations plan to pledge tens of billions of euros in military support for Ukraine to show Trump they’re committed to financing the fight.
Whether any of it works in keeping the peace at this week’s conference remains to be seen.
CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed to this report.