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President Donald Trump and his children have long faced accusations of corruption, as the Republican leader openly and his progeny openly do business with foreign countries despite the appearance of conflicts of interest. Now one of those controversial business deals — a planned resort in Albania that would destroy an ecologically-protected flamingo sanctuary — just saw a plot twist that left a conservative commentator literally laughing out loud.

“Should we talk about the Albania resort?” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer told his colleague Tim Miller. Sommer was referring to the attempts by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner to purchase islands in Albania from an alleged mob-linked figure, prompting widespread protests that have threatened Prime Minister Edi Rama’s regime. After reviewing the history of the fight over the Albanian 1,400 hectares, Sommer and Miller described the latest news report: that Artur Shehu, the businessman who sold them the land, never actually owned it in the first place.

“I think these are the highs and lows of doing business in a country like Albania, you know,” Sommer told Miller. “On one hand, maybe you can get them very quickly, the deeds.”

Laughing, Miller told Sommer he “almost spit out my coffee” at the comment “highs and lows of Albania,” then allowed his colleague to continue with his point.

“But on the other, those deeds might not be real,” Sommer warned Miller. “So basically what's going on here is that there is a village, as I understand it — there's a village involved here, and the villagers say, ‘Well, no, actually this is our land, you can tell because we all have houses and we live here.’ But he claims, ‘No, I have the deed.’ And so the allegation is that he basically forged the deeds and sold — then he said, ‘Okay, Jared and Ivanka and various Gulf sheikhs, you give me the money and here's your deed, and now you can build your resort.’”

After Miller expressed disbelief that the Rama administration did not do more to weed out any potential legal issues with the deal, Sommer characterized it as a dispute in which “Jared and Ivanka say, ‘I will enter that on the side of the cocaine trafficker.’” He also pointed out that the issue has harmed Albania’s standing with the European Union, which it wishes to join, both because it threatens wildlife and because security forces beat up a Greek citizen protesting the resort.

“I don't think it's worth it, Albania,” Sommer said, with Miller adding “you gotta feel for the flamingos. Innocent bystanders, all this — they just want their land.”

In June, the UK-based Independent ran a story covered by reporter Zana Cimili about how Albania became involved with the Trump children.

"Albania's government champions the Adriatic Coast development as a transformative venture for the nation, aiming to boost its high-end tourism sector and support its bid for European Union membership," Cimili said. "However, the project, which encompasses an abandoned island and a stretch of seafront on Albania's southern coast, has sparked criticism from environmental groups and detractors of the long-serving Socialist Prime Minister, Edi Rama." Since late May, Cimili added, "excavators and other heavy machinery have entered the area, opening access routes, digging into the sand, clearing land among pine trees and installing fencing, Environmental groups from Albania and elsewhere in Europe condemned the work, with one prominent local group charging that long-protected habitats are being 'irreversibly destroyed'…. Albania's state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details."

Cimili continued, "The government says the land earmarked for the project is privately owned. But competing claims have emerged questioning the privatization — a common type of legal dispute."

President Donald Trump is "stuck" in a conflict that appears doomed to swallow up his presidency, and according to his one-time biographer, it is all because he has run up against an enemy who knows precisely "how to play him."

Michael Wolff is a longtime reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political histories, including a series of books about the chaos of his first term. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he touched on the disintegration of Trump's Iran ceasefire deal, making a bold proclamation about where the ordeal ranks across his entire political career.

“This is the worst mistake he has made," Wolff said, adding that the Iranians have been able to play Trump by way of "trolling," later adding. "These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them."

Wolff argued that Trump now finds himself trapped in the sort of foreign conflict that can "bring presidencies down," something that Iran is keenly aware of.

"These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them," he added.

Wolff further claimed that Trump had effectively told Iran, "I’ll give you any kind of agreement you want if you just stop this war," even going so far as to offer to pay them, something he had relentlessly attacked former President Barack Obama for supposedly doing with his Iran deal.

“They keep coming back,” Wolff said of Iran. “This is a whole process of trolling Donald Trump.”

Trump has now threatened to attack Iran with "1000 Missiles" if they attempt to assassinate him, even reportedly laying out instructions for Vice President JD Vance on how to approach the situation if he is killed. Wolff suggested, however, that "the death thing is probably more clearly related to his polling numbers than it is to whatever threats the Iranians are making."

Wolff also noted that the notion of threats against his life "does get under [Trump's] skin, and he is somewhat paranoid about this."

Veteran journalist Simon Marks made similar arguments last week, suggesting that Trump "fundamentally lacks the skills and temperament to successfully manage a diplomatic deal with" a country that operates like Iran, which does not operate anything like the world of New York real estate dealing that he is used to, and is not interested in giving him something he can tout as a victory.

President Donald Trump's alienation of key allies is creating a world in which the world views the U.S. as a major threat to be avoided and prepared for, one former White House deputy warned for The New York Times, and the situation is leaving the country at risk of a "fundamental rupture" under future presidents.

Jon Finer is a journalist and diplomat who previously served as deputy national security adviser during the Biden administration, and currently serves as a "distinguished senior fellow" at Yale Law School and the Center for American Progress. In a new opinion piece published by the Times on Sunday, he sounded the alarm about how Trump's treatment of global allies is "already costing us" in the near term, and about how it will leave us weakened in the years to come. Whereas three years ago, he explained, Europe navigated the threats posed to it by China, now it must do so for the U.S. instead.

"Three years later, de-risking from predatory superpowers remains the fundamental challenge facing European leaders, but China is no longer the main country of concern: The United States is," Finer explained. "As they publicly seek to mollify a vindictive American president, policymakers across Europe are quietly working to reduce their decades-long dependence on the United States by increasing their own defense, energy and technology industries and diversifying their relationships with other nations. That dynamic was on display last week at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where President Trump renewed his threats against the U.S. allies Denmark and Spain."

He continued: "It’s not just Europe backing away from the United States. Leaders of America’s partners in Asia and the Middle East are quietly doing the same. The second Trump administration’s ostentatious corruption, trade conflicts, military adventurism and mercurial artificial intelligence regulation have produced a new moment in international affairs: a nearly global grand strategy of countries distancing themselves from the world’s most powerful nation."

This "sea change" for the U.S. is costing it the benefits to the "economy and national security" that came with being an ally that other nations relied on for military protection and technology. As these allies now move away from the U.S., Finer warned that it is "limiting our ability to respond to China’s industrial advantages."

"One doesn’t have to look far to see the costs," Finer argued. "The lost war against Iran, the first in which we didn’t have diplomatic or military alignment with our closest allies in Europe and Asia, caused a spike in gas and fertilizer prices that contributed to a $132 billion hit to American consumers, according to Moody’s. Even as Europe increased its military spending by 14 percent, to $864 billion, in 2025, its military purchases from American companies actually fell by almost half. Mr. Trump’s immigration policies are also driving countries away. Four million fewer visitors came to the United States in 2025 than in 2024, at an estimated cost of more than $8 billion. America is hemorrhaging future skilled labor as enrollment by international university students dropped 17 percent last fall from the prior year, already costing universities at least an estimated $1 billion, and potentially costing the country hundreds of billions in future revenue."

He concluded: "As our partners enhance their own resiliency to us, future American administrations must prepare plans for avoiding a more fundamental rupture. Whoever succeeds Mr. Trump will be the first to take office with countries around the world asking not what America can do for them, but rather seeking to do as much as possible without us. The first step to coping with the fallout is realizing just how much — and how permanently — the world has changed."

Politico reported on Friday that President Donald Trump is bragging that he won a battle with Spain over his military expenditure demands, but Spanish officials are very confused about how he got that idea in his head.

Trump was at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey this week, where he criticized Spain for refusing to agree to a 5 percent of GDP investment target for each member state over the next 10 years.

“Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore, by the way,” Trump said in his public meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay,” the president continued. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits."

"Watch them come running back. Oh they’ll come running back,” Trump added.

Trump also accused Madrid of treating Rutte “terribly,” telling the NATO chief he “shouldn’t carry” Spain.

“I mean, you sorta automatically carry them because you’re protecting an area,” the president continued in his rant. “So they probably figured ‘they have to protect us, right?’”

On Thursday, a U.S. official confirmed to Politico that the Treasury and Commerce Departments were crafting “a menu of Spanish products that may be embargoed in the coming days."

In Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s office told Reuters it just another Tuesday with Trump, describing it as "business as usual." They said that there was no intention of changing the "excellent" trade relations with the U.S.

Trump has been annoyed with Spain after the country refused to allow the U.S. to use the joint base as part of his war against Iran.

Upon his flight home, Trump completely reversed course. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, he said, "I did have issues with Spain, and I still do, but Spain came back all the way today. Spain was very generous today, you know, I told them I was going to stop trading. They honored a request for lots of payment."

According to Politico, "Trump's statement generated considerable confusion in Madrid."

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told the national RTVE broadcast he didn't know what Trump was talking about.

When asked about the shift, a translation of Albares' remarks read: "Only he can answer that." He went on to add, "What matters is what Spain does as a NATO ally: We are a solid, reliable ally, absolutely indispensable for Euro-Atlantic security ... in all theaters," such as the Arctic, the Baltic and "leading the charge in Iraq."

"I wish everyone could say the same with their head held high," the minister said, according to the translation. He said that Spain has reached a level of spending "that other allies have not yet achieved."

"Spain is already at 2 percent of spending, and we have provided all our capabilities," he added.

On Friday, Spanish officials said that they're simply going to assume Trump was talking about the country reaching the 2 percent target. It has reached triple what the spending was in 2018. Spain is also the country with the "largest number of troops deployed on the alliance's eastern flank," clarified Politico. They have been one of the few NATO members leading missions, including one in Slovakia.

On Wednesday, July 8, U.S. President Donald Trump was in Ankara, Turkey for the 2026 NATO Summit when he declared that the ceasefire with Iran was "over" — and Axios reported that the Trump White House was "preparing for what could become a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz." A U.S. official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Axios, "We're going to slap them a bit so they understand we're not f–– around."

But Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng, in a blistering column published Thursday morning, argues that Trump, not Iran, is the one who is being humiliated.

"This was supposed to be over," Suebsaeng writes in Zeteo. "But Donald Trump has a problem. Basically, nobody takes him seriously anymore. Not in his own government, not in Iran or elsewhere — at least when it comes to his most malevolent threats against the Islamic Republic. ... Sure, President Trump can reboot his bombing campaign, as he already did late last month and is huffily doing this week, all while claiming that maybe he doesn't even want to cut a peace deal with the Iranians anymore. ... Trump can name-call the Iranian leadership, and he can re-threaten the grand-scale war crimes and ground invasions he and his administration actively planned for but haven't carried out. And he can keep lying to the world that time is on his side and that he's in no rush to end the bloodbath that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started back in February."

Suebsaeng adds, "But ever since last month, the Iranian government has continued its campaign of humiliation against the Trump administration by refusing to bend to the U.S. president's renewed threats of mass murder and his resumed bombing sprees."

In contrast to the U.S. official who told Axios that the U.S. is "not f–– around" with Iran, a Zeteo interviewee — also a U.S. official — said of Trump, "Nobody's afraid of him right now."

That official, according to Suebsaeng, isn't the only one in Washington D.C. who feels that way.

"All of Trump's violence and bluster clearly are not imposing an effective deterrence to aggressive Iranian activity, including in the key global economic leverage point of the Strait of Hormuz," Suebsaeng explains. "There's a good reason for that. In months past, various Trump administration officials and other sources kept leaking to Zeteo about how close Trump was to ordering an invasion of different parts of Iran, or ratcheting up the war on a truly apocalyptic scale. A solid number of these sources were leaking out of alarm, given how much they did not want the president to do this, fearing it would blow up the world economy, tear down his administration, and drag the Republican Party down with him."

The Zeteo journalist continues, "Flash forward to today: Virtually none of these people think Trump has it in him anymore. Many senior officials within Trump's own government do not believe he has the stomach for ramping the war back up to 11. They certainly don't think he has the tolerance for a protracted conflict now, if he ever had it to begin with. And they really don't buy his more recent threats, including, this week, to deploy ground troops to Kharg Island, the Iranian oil hub."

Cybersecurity experts have been warning that as bad as online hacking is now, it will grow much worse as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance. But with or without AI, hackers are penetrating some major U.S. government websites — including those operated by the military.

According to Cyberscoop (which specializes in cybersecurity news) and the Daily Beast, the U.S. Army temporarily took some of its sites offline after hackers used them to insult U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Daily Beast's Will Neal reports, "The messages, first reported by cybersecurity news outlet CyberScoop, contained pro-Kurdish slogans along with messaging like 'the US president is a…. thief. f–– Trump [and] Tom Barrack' — a reference to the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Trump has spent the past two days at a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit hosted by the Middle Eastern country, itself a member of the alliance. Turkey has waged a decades-long conflict with its Kurdish minority centered on the militant PKK, which both Washington and Ankara have designated a terrorist group."

Cybersecurity researcher Ronald Lovelace, Neal notes, "was the first person to uncover the hacks" and notified CyberScoop and the U.S. Army.

According to CyberScoop's Derek B. Johnson, "Lovelace said the affected sites run on WordPress and Microsoft cloud infrastructure. It's not clear how long the subdomains have been compromised or whether other subdomains are affected."

Lovelace told CyberScoop, "It raises the severity a decent amount because it shows it's a bit deeper than just one single path (that's being corrupted)."

Neal points out that the hacking of the U.S. Army websites is "not the first time a security breach has embarrassed the Pentagon since Trump retook the White House last year."

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth notoriously shared sensitive details of planned military targets against Iranian proxies in Yemen with a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal," Neal explains. "It later transpired that one of its members, who included top Cabinet members, had accidentally added a journalist to the group."

The journalist Neal is referring to is The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who, on March 24, 2025, reported that he had been wrongly added to a private discussion by Trump administration officials. That scandal was dubbed "Signalgate" in media reports.

Neal notes, "The Daily Beast also reported, in March, that Hegseth has since handed $100 million in contracts to protect IT systems at U.S. facilities worldwide to a tech firm previously hit by a massive breach that saw criminals make off with sensitive personal data from at least 45,000 people."

President Donald Trump is perpetually unable to quell rumors about his failing cognitive and physical health, and now, as highlighted in a report from The Daily Beast, he is "once again under scrutiny after a series of jaw-dropping gaffes on the world stage."

Trump is currently in the Turkish capital of Ankara for the latest NATO summit. So far, the trip has been dogged by controversy of his own making, as he sparked outrage with new comments about annexing Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, and trashed Iranian leaders while his ceasefire deal falls apart.

Amid all of that chaos, The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday that his addresses have been littered with gaffes and verbal slips, which the outlet likened to those that raised alarms about Trump's much-hated predecessor, Joe Biden.

"During a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump repeatedly referred to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin,' mixed up the Islamic Republic of Iran with the 'Islamic Republic of Japan'; and confused the name of [Barack] Obama’s 'JCPOA' nuclear deal with another acronym, the 'JCPOC,'” the report detailed. "The 80-year-old even bragged about his popularity on a social media app that doesn’t quite exist."

"Do you know who’s number one on Tic Tac? I am,” Trump said, later correcting the flub. “I’m number one on TikTok — and all I talk about is how bad communism is.”

Trump made similar boasts prior to leaving for Ankara. As fact-checks promptly pointed out, Trump is not, as he claimed, more popular on TikTok than even Taylor Swift. In fact, his account on the platform boasts only around 16.7 million followers, roughly half of Swift's 33.5 million. Both pale in comparison, however, to the biggest creator on the platform, Khaby Lame, who boasts 162.3 million followers.

"The gaffes were reminiscent of the kind of flubs Trump previously used to highlight his predecessor Joe Biden’s cognitive decline." The Daily Beast continued. "However, Trump, who is now the oldest president to ever occupy the Oval Office, repeatedly insists he is in great shape, and often brags about 'acing' cognitive tests, not realizing that they are in fact screening tests for dementia. The president’s latest medical report from his White House physician also says he remains in 'excellent health' and is fully fit to carry out his duties as Commander-in-Chief."

President Donald Trump is at the NATO summit in Turkey where things grew contentious when he dropped a "diplomatic bombshell" on Canada.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Justin Trudeau kept getting threatening phone calls from Trump before he was replaced by Mark Carney.

At one point in a call, Trump told Canada he would kill a 118-year-old agreement that set the border with the U.S. and its neighbor to the north on maps and on the ground.

The agreement came when Canada was still handled by the United Kingdom, and at the April 1908 Boundary Convention, it was the U.K. that signed the agreement, not Canada. But Trump didn't care, telling Trudeau, “I tear that up, and your whole country unravels.”

Trump seemed confused that the law established the border, but the reality is that a slew of other agreements and treaties set the border, including the Treaty of 1818 and the Oregon Treaty of 1846.

According to the Journal, "Over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trudeau’s envoys tried to dissuade Trump from absorbing their country. When one Trump aide pointed out Canada’s 41 million people would lean Democrat, the president came up with a neat solution: just split the northern neighbor into two states, one red, the other blue."

It's unclear how Trump would make that work, given that he has an approval rating in Canada of around 22 percent, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

When Carney took over, he asked for a review of Canada's dependency "on one particular country for its data storage, military hardware, payments processing and even food."

The report called it the first move for a country shifting the U.S. from an ally to a threat. It was a stark contrast to what NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte did, which is to encourage members that they had to do whatever it would take to keep the alliance together.

"In effect, a push to make Canada America’s 51st state had lighted a fuse of unintended consequences that would play out far beyond North America, as overseas allies asked themselves whether the U.S.-led alliance could truly last," the report said.

Carney's first visit as prime minister was not to the U.S. but to France, where he and President Emmanuel Macron discussed ways to dial down its dependency on the U.S.

"Canada had the critical minerals needed by France, whose state-backed tech firms were taking early steps into the U.S.-dominated spheres of AI and quantum computing. French diplomats joked that since Canada and Denmark share a land border on an uninhabited Arctic island off Greenland, that could make the North American country a legitimate candidate to gain fast-track membership in the EU. Carney laughed," the report said.

When Carney went to the U.K. next, they discussed how "they might band together if the U.S. left 'Five Eyes,'" the U.S.-led intelligence-sharing alliance made up of the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. While that idea never gained traction, it was discussed with MI6.

While in the U.K. his requested report about a world without America was finished and he was able to share it with Kir Starmer’s office.

Starmer wanted to be cautious, insisting that they had to find a way to salvage the relationship between the West and America.

“We don’t have a relationship to keep!” Carney replied, according to the report.

Informal advisor and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was advising Canada to "produce a video that might persuade the president that they were serious about border security. Trudeau’s government hired a film crew to capture two Black Hawk helicopters and a sniffer dog on patrol. Instead of placating Trump, it seemed to fuel his interest in revisiting the placement of the border."

Carney's team, by contrast, began reading clinical and psychological studies on "impulsivity" to better learn how to deal with Trump. They believed that Trump's 51st state idea was really about "price discovery," when he throws out an absurd idea to see how the financial markets will react.

Other aides thought it was more about Trump trying to kick Trudeau while his poll numbers were down.

Either way, Carney has looked for new ideas to deal with the volatility of the American leader while slowly reducing reliance on the U.S.

President Donald Trump is "lashing out" against Iran and left "humiliated" as his much-hyped ceasefire deal falls apart, and as one veteran reporter explained for The i Paper, it all comes down to the fact that the country is "culturally incomprehensible" to him.

Trump raged against Iran during his visit to the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, saying that the ceasefire with the Middle Eastern nation is "over" after attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and strikes against American military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. He also called Iranian leaders "sick" and "scum," claiming he had no further interest in negotiating with them.

"They’re sick people, they’re led by sick people. They’re vicious, violent people," Trump said. "If they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over."

Simon Marks is a veteran reporter based in Washington, D.C., and in a Wednesday piece for The i Paper, he explained how this new tantrum from Trump over Iran was "a fresh demonstration" that he fundamentally lacks the skills and temperament to successfully manage a diplomatic deal with such a country. Furthermore, he argued that the breakdown stems from a cultural incompatibility with Trump's understanding of how to make deals in the first place.

"Trump’s latest bout of fury is a fresh demonstration that he has neither the patience nor the diplomatic mindset for the difficult negotiations that were set in motion by the [memorandum of understanding]," Marks wrote. "He expects Iran’s leaders to behave like New York property moguls. But they are not dealmakers in the American tradition, and Trump indicated on Wednesday that he finds their conduct culturally incomprehensible."

Numerous other observers have come to similar conclusions about the fraught peace talks, suggesting that Trump most likely expected to be able to bully Iran into total surrender, or to at least get them to give him something he can tout as a victory, as many other nations have learned to do when dealing with him. Iran's leaders are uninterested in any of that, having a strong desire to maintain their own strongman image, as Trump is, putting them almost irreconcilably at odds.

"If I make a deal with him, he goes out and he talks [about it]," Trump added at the summit, referring to NATO chief Mark Rutte. "If I make a deal [with Iran], and everyone is agreed, no nuclear weapon, they go out and say to the press: ‘We never even talked about it’. There’s something wrong with them."

"Of course, Trump’s claims in Ankara may simply be a fresh effort to demonstrate fox-like cunning and make Iran’s leaders fear that he’ll return to a hot war if they refuse to make the necessary concessions," Marks concluded. "But the Iranians are unlikely to believe him, and back at home Americans could quickly conclude that he has driven his own administration into a cul-de-sac from which no exit is possible. Trump can call the Iranians every name in the book, but with each insult they will conclude that they are the ones who are winning."

U.S. President Donald Trump, earlier this year, appeared to back down from his push for Greenland to become part of the United States. But after arriving in Ankara, Turkey on Tuesday, July 7, Trump appeared determined to reopen that old wound by reiterating his ideas for Greenland.

On X, Financial Times' Amy Mackinnon reported, "Two hours since he touched down in Ankara for the Nato summit and Trump has reiterated that he believes Greenland 'should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.' He went on to say that the US could remove 'all of our soldiers out of Europe,' claiming that the continent is 'a very different place than it was 20 years ago.'"

Trump's desire for Greenland to become part of the United States is a sore spot for other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — especially Denmark.

After Trump, earlier this year, called for the U.S. to annex the Arctic island of Greenland — a colony of Denmark — other NATO countries made it clear that they were vehemently opposed to the idea. Mette Frederiksen emphasized that Greenland and Europe would decide the island's future, not Trump.

In January, Trump wouldn't rule out the possibility of the U.S. military taking Greenland by force, saying that the U.S. would acquire Greenland either the easy way or "the hard way" and that the annexation would happen "whether they like it or not." And Danish broadcaster DR reported that Denmark was quietly making preparations to protect Greenland militarily.

DR, in March, reported, "With the Greenland crisis, Europe realized once and for all that we need to be able to take care of our own security, says a top French official who has played a crucial role in the intense months and critical days of the Greenland crisis."

NATO officials warned that if the U.S. did try to take Greenland by force, it would mean the end of the 77-year-old alliance.

Trump seemed to back down from his threats against Greenland, but he continued to bring up the subject at times.

The 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara comes at a time when other NATO countries are not only troubled by Trump's threats against Greenland, but also, by the way he has handled the United States' war against Iran.

After going to war against Iran in late February and carrying out airstrikes against the country, Trump berated other NATO countries for not doing more to help him with the military operation.

This Tuesday, July 7, U.S. President Donald Trump is visiting Ankara, Turkey to attend the 2026 NATO Summit. Tensions between Trump and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members have soared since his return to the White House 17 and one-half months ago, and according to Politico, NATO leaders are desperately trying to make sure that the Ankara event doesn't go off the rails.

"After a bruising year of infighting, crises and recriminations," journalists Victor Jack and Laura Kayali report in Politico, "NATO countries are opting for a by-now-familiar playbook at the Ankara Summit: Placate Donald Trump, and pray for no surprises. NATO leaders gather in Turkey on Tuesday hoping for a show of unity after a year of unprecedented strain on the alliance, largely thanks to the U.S. president. After threatening to annex Greenland, Trump repeatedly bludgeoned allies for not helping Washington's war effort in Iran — while his administration vowed reprisals for those not spending enough on defense."

According to Jack and Kayali, the United States' European NATO allies "are pulling out the stops to prevent a Trump blow-up" — and that includes "promoting the big bucks being spent on defense" and "keeping the focus on the less divisive topic of industry."

A senior NATO diplomat, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico, "It's all about Trump management." And Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken cautions that NATO representatives need to be as "diplomatic" as possible — not confrontational — when dealing with Trump in Ankara.

Francken told Politico, "There's no alternative how to approach him but to be diplomatic and not to extremely offend him and saying that we're stepping up. That's what we need to do, and that's what we're doing."

Two NATO diplomatics interviewed by Politico, according to Jack and Kayali, are determined to extend an "olive branch" to Trump in Ankara.

But some NATO officials fear that despite their best efforts to have a meaningful dialogue with Trump, a "conflict" could occur. And the Politico reporters point out that "even careful preparation can't immunize NATO from a Trump explosion."

Veteran NATO official Gerlinde Niehus told Politico, "If this conflict flares up again — which can't be ruled out — and then Trump again puts (out) statements that Europeans should step up, then that topic would, of course, overshadow everything else."

President Donald Trump is sending a “dangerous” message to America’s allies, as is his MAGA team, according to a recent editorial by a conservative publication.

“President Trump has been gearing up for this week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit by complaining that the alliance is a ripoff,” opined The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Sunday. “But the real question at the meeting is about the United States, as the Administration yanks troops from Europe without owning up to the risks to U.S. security.”

At a time when America’s military allies have expressed increasing alarm over the prospect that the United States is withdrawing its foreign policy commitments, the Journal disagreed with Trump’s claim that America spends more money on NATO than any other country without receiving any benefit from it in return.

“This ignores that peace in Europe is a core U.S. interest and not charity work, as those who survived the 20th century can attest,” the Journal wrote. “The President deserves credit for demanding that Europeans spend on defense, and this is a heavy political lift in complacent democracies that will take persuasion and compromise. Yet NATO allies increased spending 20% last year alone, and an influx of cash is now chasing too little manufacturing capacity after decades of neglect.”

The Journal added that the United States needs NATO to protect its interests in Europe, especially from an increasingly aggressive Russia, and that it runs counter to domestic interests for America not to do so. Given that Trump seems determined to pull America out of Europe, though, the next best thing is giving European countries adequate time to build up their own military and defense establishments.

“The irony is that U.S. leadership in NATO is essential to make sure that money is spent to produce combat power,” the Journal wrote. “Some allies will be tempted to squander money on their own national vanity fighter jet projects or bet on unproven technology to avoid a real military expansion.”

He added, “In other words, European rearmament will take time, and nobody even pretends that European troops are today fully prepared to replace American brigades. Yet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently trumpeted that the Pentagon had reduced the U.S. footprint ‘to pre-2022 levels with the redeployment of a brigade combat team last year and further reduction of 5,000 forces earlier this year.’”

Even then, though, the Journal expressed concern that Europe alone will not be able to protect itself, and questioned Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bragging that levels in Europe are down to pre-2022 levels. Russia invaded Ukraine that year.

“Pulling troops is a message of American ambivalence that Mr. Putin will hear, which brings us to Ukraine,” the Journal wrote of Trump’s NATO policy. “The President may repeat his refrain that Ukraine isn’t America’s problem, but that would miss a strategic opportunity. Ukraine is hurting Mr. Putin with precision strikes on targets in Russia, and the President likes to ride a winner.”

Overall, the Journal continued that “Mr. Putin’s appetite for risk-taking is all the more reason not to pull conventional forces from the continent. Cuts to conventional assets mean Mr. Trump will have to rely more on U.S. nuclear deterrence. The President professes to hate nuclear weapons, and Mr. Putin may figure Mr. Trump would never use them, say, to defend the Baltic states.”

It concluded, “The NATO meeting will be mostly photos of European diplomats smiling nervously and hoping it ends without a blowup. But for a man who prides himself on understanding that hard power governs the world, the President is getting bad advice that will produce weaker deterrence in Europe.”

President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have caused a major disruption in the partisan nature of "patriotism," according to an extensive new report from Politico, mirroring a similar shift caused by the far right on a global scale.

On Sunday, Politico reported on the findings of its latest poll, claiming that "Patriotism has become partisan," according to respondents from all over the world, at least as far as expressions of national pride are concerned.

"It doesn’t matter that people across the ideological spectrum are equally likely to say that they themselves are patriotic. New international polling shows that when you ask them about expressions of patriotism, they think those displays are right-coded," the report detailed. "Those results from The POLITICO Poll reveal the extent of right-wing populist parties’ success after years of claiming nationalism as central to their political identities — and growing in power and popularity."

According to the poll's findings in the U.S., "respondents were 15 points more likely to expect someone who said they were proud to be American to be Republican (38) than Democratic (23)." Despite that notable perception, the poll also found that, overall, "pride in one’s country is essentially nonpartisan," with 68 percent of U.S. adults, "including most Trump 2024 voters and former Vice President Kamala Harris voters," agreeing that they were proud to be Americans. Similar majorities were found amongst respondents across the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain.

"The findings are the latest sign that these parties — from Donald Trump’s 'America First' movement in the United States to the rise of the far right across Europe — are owning the language and symbols of patriotism, including a country’s flag," the report added. "Right-wing parties have rapidly gained ground by tapping into voters’ growing concerns over border security and cost of living, and have flexed their power over the last decade, reshaping existing debates over conservatism, sovereignty and national identity. In some cases, they have pushed major political parties, like America’s GOP, further to the right."

It continued later: "In the United States, Trump’s 'America First' agenda and 'Make America Great Again' movement have explicitly made national identity central to Republican messaging. The president has vowed to secure the southern border, conduct widespread deportations and prioritize aggressive trade politics aimed at boosting the U.S. economy."

The laughter was hard to contain during a phone call between the British and the United States, a top British aide told the BBC

Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is speaking out about some of the strange things he witnessed in his two years working for the U.K. government, a Daily Beast report on Friday said. One of those things left Starmer fighting to keep a straight face.

It was among his first calls with world leaders and the first time he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump. There were two major topics of conversation for him that were so absurd that all Starmer could do was laugh.

The first comments were about "fat foxes," but the more important ones involved Trump's oldest grudge.

“So the first call that Keir had with the president, he got into a conversation about windmills,” McSweeney said.

Since being in a fight with Scotland over an offshore wind farm, Trump has fought tooth and nail to eliminate windmills wherever he can.

“Then he started saying, ‘The windmills are killing your birds. The birds are falling around the windmills, and the foxes are eating those birds,’” McSweeney recalled Trump telling Starmer.

Trump then said that the foxes have become fat and lazy because the dead birds make it easier to hunt. The foxes have grown so fat that “people no longer knew what kind of creature they were because they were too fat.”

“At that point, the officials in the room were barely able to contain themselves because it was so funny,” McSweeney said. He added that those in the room tried so hard to be "professional," but it was a heavy lift.

"While wind turbines do result in some bird fatalities, studies consistently show they kill far fewer birds per unit of electricity generated than fossil fuel energy sources, which Trump has repeatedly recommended Britain should rely on instead," said the Daily Beast.

The highest killer of birds is cats.

The U.K has been unable to uncover any empirical evidence that foxes are growing fatter.

“We thought, ‘This is going to be so, so very, very different,’” said McSweeney about the U.K. relationship with Trump.

Trump broke the news about Starmer's resignation before it was announced publicly. Trump told The Washington Post that he never spoke to Starmer and that he just made an educated guess about the prime minister's next moves.

On King Island, which lies between Tasmania and the Australian mainland, the Dolphin Mine has one of the world's largest deposits of tungsten — a rugged metal used to harden bullets and shells. According to Bloomberg News' David Fickling, the mine (which opened in 1917) is used as an unlikely predictor of major wars — and it's opening again.

"First opened in 1917 to support munitions production in World War 1, it shut down three years later when peace crashed the tungsten market," Fickling explains in a Bloomberg News opinion column. "Starting up again in 1938 on the eve of World War 2, it was saved twice more as conflict broke out first in Korea and then Vietnam. In 1990, exactly 12 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it closed, seemingly for good. Water flooded its pit and underground tunnels, and the workers' settlement became a ghost town."

Fickling continues, "Viewed from the perspective of 2026, this boom-and-bust cycle looks like a foolish way to have treated such a vital strategic element. With geopolitical tensions on the rise, the retrenchment of supply chains that began with the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a global scramble to secure critical minerals such as rare earths, lithium and cobalt."

In 2026, Fickling observes, one is seeing an "eruption of speculative interest reminiscent of previous wartime tungsten rushes."

"Since the start of 2025," the Bloomberg News columnist observes, "prices have jumped almost eight-fold, attracting the attention of many players — including the president of the United States. Donald Trump's sons are collaborating with the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on a tungsten project in Kazakhstan, according to the New York Times."

Fickling points out that Kevin Pallas, CEO of the Dolphin Mine's parent company, "is betting that global interest in tungsten" will work in the mine's favor.

Pallas told Fickling, "The phone started ringing in January, and it hasn't stopped ringing. The majority of the early calls we got were people saying, 'We thought you were dead.'"

Fickling notes that during wartime, tungsten "has a deadlier purpose" and "can slice straight through armor plating." A "metal rain of tungsten pellets," according to Fickling, "can destroy drones and missile batteries."

"These lethal properties explain why tungsten was once seen as the ultimate military and strategic mineral, as vital to victory as steel or oil," Fickling notes. "During a 1932 League of Nations disarmament conference, prices first collapsed and then soared again as prospects of a deal waxed and waned. Through the decade, as fears of war grew, the belligerents scrambled to secure stockpiles before conflict severed their supply lines. In the run-up to the 1944 D-Day landings, the U.S. imposed an oil embargo on Francoist Spain to force it to stop selling the element to Nazi Germany…. Military strategists have another reason for alarm: the rising tide of conflict is depleting tungsten supplies at the fastest pace in decades."

During World War 2 in 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement made the U.S. dollar the world's reserve currency. And 82 years later, it still enjoys that status. But liberal economist Paul Krugman, in a late June Substack column, lays out some problems the U.S. dollar is facing during Donald Trump's second presidency.

"We are now four months into a war that was supposed to last a couple of weeks," Krugman argues. "There is no end in sight as strikes and counterstrikes continue despite Trump's farcical proclamations of American victory and Iranian surrender. Sixteen months into his presidency, Trump has squandered all of America's credibility with the rest of the world. So let me add one more item to the tally of destruction: the supremacy of the dollar, the pre-eminent tool in America's toolbox of global financial power, has been seriously damaged by the rise of alternative payment systems — a rise that was greatly hastened by the Iran war."

Krugman explains exactly what he means when he speaks of the U.S. dollar's "supremacy" being "seriously damaged." And he cites Trump's "stunning failure" with the Iran war as a key factor.

"Let me be clear that I don’t mean that the dollar is close to losing its dominant role in global business," Krugman writes. "And I am definitely not claiming that the dollar's weakened status will make the United States substantially poorer. Instead, what I am talking about is the loss of a non-military tool of coercion — the power to punish that the dominant role of the dollar in international financial transactions gave the United States. That power is now greatly diminished because Trump's Iran war demonstrated to other nations that they can bypass the dollar-centered world payments system — largely thanks to China."

Krugman notes that the U.S. dollar's "importance in international financial transactions far outweighs the U.S. economy's global importance."

"America is by no means a dominant force in world trade or world GDP," Krugman observes. "There are, in fact, three roughly comparable-sized economic superpowers in today’s world: China, the United States, and the European Union. However, the U.S. dollar does play a dominant role in world finance…. Why does everyone use dollars? Because so many other people and businesses use dollars, which makes markets in dollars far more liquid and efficient than markets in any other currency…. What dollar dominance does do…. is give America a powerful economic weapon against other nations."

Krugman continues, "Transactions that involve dollar payments normally require transferring money between U.S. banks — which means that they are visible to and can be blocked by U.S. authorities…. The Iran debacle has demonstrated that using dollars and retaining access to the U.S. banking system, while convenient, aren't necessary. Iran's ability to withstand American pressure has demonstrated that U.S. sanctions are a lot less effective than in the past given that rogue actors can use the yuan and CIPS as a work-around. And as the Gulf States' actions show, even countries that are U.S. allies are now considering signing onto the Chinese payment system."

U.S. President Donald Trump's "memorandum of understanding" with Iran was put to the test when, on June 25, Iranian forces attacked commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the United States responded with military attacks against Iran. Conservative Journalist Bill Kristol examines the state of the "memo of understanding" in The Bulwark, arguing that Trump left Iran in a stronger position than it was in before the war.

"This military tit-for-tatting happened amidst a cacophony of competing understandings of the much-heralded memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago," Kristol writes in The Bulwark. "It turns out that an agreement that Iran would 'make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels' is subject to very different interpretations of 'arrangements' and 'best efforts.' The United States thinks 'safe passage' should mean free passage. Iran thinks that if Iran can 'make arrangements,' it's allowed to — make arrangements. Who could have known there would be disagreement on this point? But the bottom line is that this is what a messy but unacknowledged surrender by the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Iran looks like."

The Bulwark uses a clever "Wizard of Oz" analogy to describe Trump's Iran deal. In the famous L. Frank Baum children's story, the "man behind the curtain" isn't really the all-powerful individual he pretends to be — and The Bulwark compares him to the "man behind the curtain."

"You could emphasize his personal role in bringing about this sad state of affairs," Kristol writes. "In this case, you might rather want to go middlebrow and cinematic, and quote from the climactic scene of the 1939 movie, 'The Wizard of Oz.'"

The "new normal" with Trump and Iran, Kristol predicts, will find the U.S. in a state of "surrender."

"It will consist of on-and-off military tit-for-tats; endless diplomatic squabbling and propagandizing; a Strait of Hormuz that is quasi-open but not reliably so, and is mostly so at Iranian sufferance; no resolution with regard to Iran's nuclear program; and at the end of the day an Iranian regime that is emboldened, American allies that are uncertain and dispirited, and a United States that is unable to exert its power or will decisively," Kristol laments. "It's not good. But it's where we are…. You could point out how unlikely it is that Trump can 'militarily complete' the job he started."

Kristol adds, "You could suggest that this latest instance of Trumpian bluster does more to highlight than to cover up his weakness in this moment. And you could emphasize how foolish and reckless was his choice to start this war. So, citing T.S. Eliot is apt: We are at an important, even world-historical moment."

U.S. President Donald Trump isn't shy about saying who he likes and dislikes in Latin America. Trump often praises right-wing populists like Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Argentinian President Javier Milei, but he is no fan of progressive Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. And he used the U.S. military to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office, although Venezuela still has a leftist government under Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

According to University of Chicago political science professor Michael Albertus, the far right continues to make significant gains in that part of the world. And Albertus, writing for the conservative website The Bulwark, stresses that the "Trump playbook" is being used extensively in Latin America.

"The political landscape of Latin America has changed dramatically," Albertus explains. "Within the span of several weeks, two of South America's largest democracies have elected leaders from the far right. In Peru, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the dictator who governed the country between 1990 and 2000, has apparently won a razor-thin runoff against leftist Roberto Sánchez. In Colombia, far-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella defeated the candidate backed by the outgoing left-wing government of Gustavo Petro. These results follow a landslide victory in December by far-right candidate José Antonio Kast in Chile."

The political scientist continues, "Latin America is a complicated place, and each of these elections has its own national dynamic. But taken together, they tell a larger story of a resurgence in right-wing politics across the Andes."

Albertus describes that the "rightward shift" in Latin America as a "product of deeper forces reshaping the political landscape across the region" — including "a spiraling security crisis fueled by drug trafficking and organized crime" and a "migration shock centered on Venezuela."

"A new generation of right-wing politicians has learned — both from each other and from the Trump playbook — how to weaponize these forces to their advantage," Albertus observes. "And they have seized on the opening provided by mainstream parties that are either in collapse or that have earned a reputation for their incapacity to deal effectively with crime and migration. The question now for the defenders of liberalism globally is whether and how this can be contained."

Crime, according to Albertus, is a key factor in the wave of MAGA-like victories in Latin America.

"Chile's crime surge is real, even if modest by regional standards," the University of Chicago political scientist notes. "And hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan and Haitian migrants have provided a convenient scapegoat. Meanwhile, previous president Gabriel Boric's economic record was underwhelming: growth was anemic, inflation spiked in the aftermath of COVID, and many Chileans reported a desire to emigrate…. The combination of weakened institutions, metastasizing organized crime, and a Trump administration that has abandoned democracy promotion creates conditions in which democratic backsliding can happen quickly."

The GOP has become embroiled in a bitter and "extraordinary feud," according to a new report from The Washington Post, over the actions of a "virtually unknown" but vital Trump appointee within the Pentagon.

Elbridge Colby is the current undersecretary of defense for policy, a position which, the Post explained, "serves a vital role as the Pentagon’s chief strategist on issues such as counterterrorism and nuclear deterrence." Additionally, unlike his bosses, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, he came to the position with actual prior Pentagon experience.

Despite that leg up, Colby has enraged many Republican lawmakers since he was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by Congress. The Post's report noted a particularly caustic relationship with Rep. Mike D. Rogers, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who took Colby "at his word" when he told the congressman that he was not aware of any upcoming overseas troop reductions. Rogers, who maintains a considerably close relationship with Romania, was then stunned and betrayed to learn that the Trump administration would be removing a key "Army brigade that had fortified NATO’s eastern flank since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine."

Colby claimed to the Post that a final order had not been issued in October when he took that meeting with Rogers, also stressing that he is "very careful about what I say and what I don’t say." Nonetheless, his relationship with the Republican-led chambers of Congress has only soured since then.

"In the months since, House and Senate Republicans have conducted more aggressive oversight of Colby than nearly any other Trump appointee," the Post detailed. "They have overruled his policies and blocked the confirmation of two officials nominated to serve as his top deputies. At least two prominent Republicans have publicly accused him of dishonesty. The extraordinary feud has become an open proxy war within the GOP, people familiar with the dispute said, as Republicans with starkly different ideas of America’s rightful role in the world each have argued their camp best represents President Donald Trump’s vision for an 'America First' foreign policy."

Colby came under scrutiny prior to his confirmation, particularly from GOP war hawks, for his comments attacking the idea of escalating U.S. support for Ukraine, while also dismissing the potential for a military campaign against Iran. Now, he has changed his tune considerably and voiced support for Trump's haphazard conflict with the Middle Eastern nation.

The report further noted that GOP critics have attacked Colby as something of an "enforcer of the Trump administration’s transactional approach to U.S. allies," demanding in speeches and posts "that partners from Europe to East Asia increase their defense spending and prepare for less American support." He has also drawn the ire of certain lawmakers for his attempt to block a congressional delegation from visiting Taiwan, fearing backlash from China.

Lawmakers have also vented during hearings about Colby's poor communication with Congress.

“You know who the hardest guy to get a hold of in the Trump administration is? The undersecretary of defense for policy,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, told one of Colby's top deputies during their confirmation hearing.