Trump touts warmer Turkey ties as sanctions debate resurfaces at NATO summit

President Donald Trump used the NATO summit in Ankara to tout warmer ties with Turkey while sanctions on Ankara’s defense industry returned to the center of the alliance agenda. The meeting, held July 7-8, 2026, at the Beştepe Presidential Compound in Ankara, coincided with NATO’s Summit Defence Industry Forum, a gathering focused on transatlantic defense production, investment and innovation.

Trump’s pitch matters because the United States sanctioned Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries, or SSB, on December 14, 2020, under CAATSA Section 231 after Turkey bought Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system. The State Department said the penalties included a ban on all U.S. export licenses and authorizations to SSB, and congressional research says U.S. law still blocks transfer of F-35s to Turkey unless Turkey no longer possesses the Russian-origin S-400 or related items.

That gives Trump’s outreach a transactional edge. Lifting sanctions would hand Ankara a major concession and reopen the F-35 conversation, but it would also weaken a pressure tool built around a clear Russian-red-line issue. U.S. officials have suggested the sanctions could be removed if the S-400 problem is properly addressed, yet doing so without visible changes from Ankara would risk signaling that Washington will trade away defense restrictions for diplomatic optics at a NATO summit.

Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, called Trump’s approach “a strange way to do business.” The remark captured the bind facing Washington: Turkey remains a crucial NATO member and a defense partner, but it also keeps deep procurement ties to Russia. The same summit has put alliance defense investment and industrial output front and center, making Turkey’s role in NATO’s rearmament push hard to separate from the dispute over Moscow-made weapons.

The relationship has also spilled into other pressure points. NBC News reported in June 2026 that Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered officials to resume talks on reopening the Halki Orthodox Christian seminary after Trump raised the issue, a reminder that the bilateral channel now stretches from missiles and fighter jets to religious freedom and diplomatic bargaining. The seminary has been closed since 1971.