Trump embarrassed the US again at the July 2026 NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The world is watching—our enemies as well as our allies — which means it’s not just embarrassing, it’s dangerous.
Here’s how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the NATO summit: "President Trump delivered a marathon, high-energy performance at the NATO summit, holding four separate press availabilities plus a solo press conference and taking unscripted questions from reporters on a wide range of topics. The President commanded every room, gave our allies some much-needed tough love, and left the summit with a stronger NATO and more united free world.”
Leavitt, Fox News, and right-wing media reported this fawning pablum and little else, which explains how 38% of the country still supports a corrupt felon who is openly robbing the country while he strives to start WWIII. To the rest of the world, Trump’s conduct was widely viewed as a highly embarrassing showcase of verbal stumbles, erratic behavior, and mental illness.
What the rest of the world reported
Trump tried to turn the NATO summit, like the nation’s 250th birthday, into a story centering around Trump. He committed repeated errors in the process:
Trump said Spain is ‘worthless’ and he wants to “cut off trade with Spain.” We don’t trade with Spain, we trade with the EU, of which Spain is a member. Trump appears not to understand the difference, or what the EU trade bloc actually does.
He called Zelensky President Putin. Twice.
He referred to the Islamic Republic of Japan.
He couldn’t recall the name of the Iran nuclear agreement hammered out and signed during the Obama administration, calling it "JC P," even though he started a war over it.
He trotted out, once again, his threat to take Greenland. Danish Prime Minister made it clear nothing of the sort would happen.
He praised Turkey’s president, a fellow corrupt authoritarian, and China’s Xi, a communist, but pointlessly insulted previous presidents of the United States. He can’t stop attacking Biden and Obama, whom he has called O-Bum-A. Such a clever guy. He has no idea that these childish insults and jabs at former US presidents paint our nation in a negative light, hurting our standing among peers and adversaries alike.
The worst and most dangerous thing is that Trump keeps demonstrating his fundamental ignorance of the NATO alliance. He has said, repeatedly, that NATO should have helped the US when he attacked Iran, because he is losing that ill-fated war and needs someone else to blame. Trump has called his requests to back his war in Iran a "loyalty test.” But NATO is a defensive alliance, not an offensive one. It does not attack but exists to deter attacks and Trump can’t seem to comprehend the difference. Trump attacked Iran without consulting NATO allies, can’t understand why most refused to help, and now wants to punish them for his own mistakes even though our allies were following our own defensive charter.
Global condemnation intensifies
Although Trump later reversed his tone behind closed NATO doors to claim a state of complete "unification," his bizarre statements and erratic performance left European heads of state visibly exhausted, and reinforced worry about his unstable approach to international diplomacy and his mental instability in general. Global condemnation has intensified across the world stage, with foreign leaders, foreign media, and mental health experts increasingly admitting that his erratic behavior is a direct threat to international security.
International alarm had already spiked following previous high-stakes summits where he exhibited similar cognitive slips — such as repeatedly confusing Greenland and Iceland, and mistaking the nation of Iran for Japan. Diplomatic circles were further rattled when Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico openly shared his Trump anxiety with The New Republic regarding Trump's volatile "psychological state." Fico told European Union leaders that he was worried about Trump’s mental health, saying that the president came across as “dangerous” during a meeting the pair had in January at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Fico made the comments at an emergency EU summit over Trump’s threats to annex Greenland. French far-right leader Jordan Bardella similarly described Trump’s foreign policy as "erratic" and "extremely unsteady" and "constantly shifting.’
As reported by global publishers like The Guardian and France 24, foreign media has stopped analyzing Trump’s ‘unorthodox political strategy’ and has instead pivoted to directly and explicitly questioning his mental acuity. The growing international consensus is that Trump’s escalating impulsivity, unnecessary public feuds with global figures like Meloni and the Pope, and cognitive confusion is not so much eccentric showmanship as a display of cognitive decline that endangers the world.
Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.
