NATO Wounded by Trump: Merz Accuses Washington of Humiliation, Alliance Considers End to Annual Summits

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly stated that, in his view, Iran had humiliated the United States in their recent war. The remark, picked up from Washington to Seoul, is widely read as a symptom of a deeper unease within the Atlantic Alliance. At the same time, NATO is debating whether to scrap its annual summits, while a military rapprochement between Russia and North Korea is taking firmer shape.

The Alliance's cohesion appears strained by the positions of the current US administration. The debate over the future of the annual summits goes to the heart of how the organization works: held regularly since the end of the Cold War, these gatherings structure coordination among members, and calling them into question would signal an unprecedented institutional break. The next summit, set to take place in Turkey, is being framed as a test of the bloc's unity.

Layered onto this institutional tension is a debate over Ukraine. Merz floated the idea of territorial concessions tied to a possible move toward European Union membership. The proposal divides sharply: some actors read it as an admission of Western weakening, while others see it as an unacceptable abandonment that would reward aggression. Central and Eastern European states oppose it, but their reaction draws little coverage outside Europe.

Several readings coexist without resolution: the real reach of a European strategic autonomy that still lacks the means to act, and the meaning of the Moscow-Pyongyang rapprochement, remain contested. The institutional debate over the summits, for its part, stays largely under-analyzed. The open question is whether these fractures are temporary or are settling durably into the transatlantic landscape.