| Summary/Abstract |
THE MAY 25, 2017 MEETING of NATO heads of state and government was from the start seen as a key political event, being a venue of U.S. President Donald Trump's first European visit. During this meeting, the new conditions for the transatlantic treaty, both within the alliance itself and in the broader context of American-European relations, had to be determined. The Trump-NATO topic was a hot issue even during the new president's electoral campaign, once he had declared the alliance to be a useless and outdated organization. NATO members had wanted to meet with the new U.S. president earlier, but this turned out to be unrealistic in light of their uncoordinated positions and the need for preliminary political and diplomatic consensus. Trump's stop-off in Saudi Arabia, where he signed a $110 billion arms deal, and his subsequent visits to Israel and the Vatican before engaging in direct dialogue with the United States' main strategic partners, served only to increase the level of concern and areas of tension within NATO.
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