But he emerged from this week's summit in Ankara, Turkey, with renewed dedication to the entangling alliance. It seems the Europeans may have softened him up by promising to buy more American-made weapons.

Trump arrived in Ankara on Tuesday. He praised the country's autocratic leader, Tayyip Erdo?an, saying, "Frankly, if it [the summit] weren't held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it's possible that I wouldn't have attended." And while he repeated a litany of complaints and took jabs at various member states, especially for refusing to help the United States at the height of its war on Iran, the two sides made up by the end of the meeting.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Trump called NATO leaders "very smart people" with "a lot of good in their heart." He suggested that the NATO alliance remains strong as he described a closed-door, warm meeting between alliance leaders in which "there was tremendous love."

Mark Rutte

Trump called NATO head Mark Rutte a great unifier. Rutte, for his part, corroborated Trump's kumbaya version of the meeting, likening the acrimonious cloud that has been hovering over America and NATO to a healthy family that sometimes argues. "I always felt that families where sometimes you have heart-to-hearts and sometimes you fight each other a bit are much stronger" than families who never disagree, Rutte said. It would be "fake" if they never fought, he added. Moreover, when friends fight each other, "it makes you stronger." The bottom line, Rutte concluded, is that Trump "is committed to NATO."

Rutte even defended the president's persevering pressure on NATO members to spend more on their militaries. He repeated the view that it's nonsensical to have so many rich European nations depend on one country, the United States, for protection against threats such as the one supposedly posed by the Russians, and justified Trump's complaints, saying the U.S. president is "committed to NATO, but also expecting us all to do more."

He also said that he pointed out to Trump that Iran has nothing to with NATO, since the alliance is between and for European nations.

Money for U.S. Weapons

During the same press conference, Trump said that NATO member states pledged to increase, or to continue to work toward increasing, their military spending. Last year's promises to boost spending netted an increase of nearly $150 billion, according to Trump. That increase benefited American weapons makers, he said, and it's a pattern that will continue, because the idea is to make and sell more weapons — many more. "As European nations rebuild their militaries, American equipment will be the largest beneficiary," said Trump.

The president talked at length about his administration's pressure on American weapons makers to build more weapons and munitions and to build them faster. He said he suggested to manufacturers that they build more plants, not just work longer hours in existing plants. And he described various U.S.-made missiles and defense systems as being unsurpassed in quality and destructive capabilities.