Trump Praises NATO’s ‘Unity’ After Lashing Out at Allies

“Two years ago, NATO laughed at us, everybody laughed at us,” he said. “They don’t laugh anymore, there’s no more laughing.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had scolded France, Germany, Italy and Britain for not joining the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, compared the war in Ukraine to children fighting and called Spaniards “hopeless,” threatening to cut off trade with them.

He also cast doubt on the temporary cease-fire with Iran aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, and repeatedly denigrated Iran’s leaders as “evil, sick people,” “scum” and “cancer.”

He added, “I’m not sure I want to make a deal with them,” but also said he was not looking for a “long-term” conflict. “I don’t think it’s going to start again, I think it’s going to go very quickly,” he said, suggesting the United States would keep striking Iran if it fired on ships.

The summit did produce welcome news for NATO and Ukraine, however. Mr. Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that the United States would allow the country to manufacture Patriot air defense systems to protect itself from Russian missiles. “This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough,” he said.

NATO members, including the United States, also recommitted to its mutual defense agreement, vowed to increase military spending and expand defense production, and increased their support for Ukraine.

The reaffirmation of mutual defense was notable, given the doubts among some countries that Mr. Trump would send U.S. forces to support them if they came under attack.

The allies pledged $80 billion in military aid this year and next, a figure that included a mix of previous and new commitments.

The road to that end was rocky. On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump called Spaniards “hopeless, bad people” and said he was cutting off trade with the country — an unlikely prospect given the European Union’s 27 nations negotiate trade deals jointly.

Mr. Trump’s remarks, in an extraordinary outburst to reporters as he sat next to Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, had cast a pall over a meeting critical for the military alliance’s future.

Before the two-day leaders’ summit, NATO officials had sought to prevent blowups. But Mr. Trump made clear that he was still angry that, as he sees it, the United States is spending too much to protect allies who are spending too little.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• A new plane: Mr. Trump, asked about why he isn’t flying on his new plane on his way out of Turkey, told reporters it would instead stop at a couple of military bases, “so the soldiers can see it.”

• Rutte’s comments: Mr. Rutte called the latest American strikes against Iran “absolutely necessary,” but new strikes between the countries appeared to be pushing their shaky truce closer to collapse. Follow the latest updates on the Iran war ›

• Past criticism: Mr. Trump has rarely missed an opportunity to castigate NATO as weak and ineffective, and has sought to pull back from the alliance while urging other members to contribute more. Read more ›

In Istanbul, a politician who planned to challenge Mr. Erdogan for the presidency sought to defend himself in court before being returned to his jail cell.

“This is a political case — entirely,” the politician, Ekrem Imamoglu, told a panel of judges. “This is the murder of the law.”

Since 2019, Mr. Imamoglu has beat candidates backed by Mr. Erdogan three times to become and remain the mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city.

That made him a rising star in Turkey’s political opposition, and he announced his intention to run in the country’s next presidential election, scheduled for 2028. Some polls suggested he could beat Mr. Erdogan in a head-to-head contest.

Mr. Imamoglu was arrested last year and later accused by prosecutors of enriching himself and funding his political ambitions through a criminal organization inside city hall. He was removed as mayor and jailed pending trial. Prosecutors are seeking to send him to prison for more than 2,000 years.

Mr. Imamoglu has denied all wrongdoing. Rights groups and his supporters have dismissed the charges as political moves by Mr. Erdogan’s government to eliminate a political rival.

The government has repeatedly insisted that its legal system is free from political interference, and Mr. Erdogan has spoken of Mr. Imamoglu as the head of a vast criminal conspiracy.

The trial of Mr. Imamoglu and more than 400 other defendants facing similar charges, opened earlier this year. On Wednesday, when global attention was focused on the NATO summit in Ankara, Mr. Imamoglu challenged a decision by the judges that he be given only through Thursday to make his defense.

“This is a grave breach of rights and you are harming the Turkish judiciary,” he said.

The judges rejected his request for more time.

Despite waves of arrests of opposition figures and a crackdown on dissent in the run-up to the summit, NATO officials did not publicly address what some see privately as rising autocracy in Turkey. Rights groups say Turkey’s increased importance to NATO allies has silenced criticism of Mr. Erdogan’s domestic governance.

In the courtroom, the head judge accused Mr. Imamoglu of disrupting the court.

“I am not going to defend myself,” Mr. Imamoglu said, adding that he should judge those who he said had wrongly accused him.

“You cannot judge,” the chief judge replied. “You are here to be judged.”

He ordered Mr. Imamoglu’s removal from the courtroom.

The former mayor’s supporters in the gallery booed and chanted, “President Imamoglu!” as security officers led him from the room.

The court then decided that Mr. Imamoglu had exercised his right to remain silent and chosen not to offer a defense.

The ballistic missiles are raining down on Kyiv now, but the fruits of Mr. Trump’s informal, seemingly impromptu policy announcement may not be ripe for years. Patriot systems are complex and time consuming to manufacture.

It is unclear which Ukrainian company might be selected to partner with either RTX or Lockheed Martin, the two primary defense contractors that produce the Patriot systems, to manufacture the interceptor missiles. Once they have a factory in Ukraine built, it would immediately become a high-priority target for Moscow.

These are all problems Ukrainian leaders are happy to tackle. President Volodymyr Zelensky is confident that after four years of war, his country moves more quickly than Western militaries at procurement and production, driven by the lethal threat it faces every day.

Ukraine is engaged in a race against time to bolster its air defenses. Mr. Zelensky has warned for weeks that Ukraine is running out of Patriot interceptors, the most reliable weapon that Western allies have given the country to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. The mobile, surface-to-air defense system consists of advanced radar, a control van, and missile launchers, which fire the interceptor missiles.

The consequences of the shortage were laid bare on Monday, when Ukraine’s Air Force said it had failed to intercept any of the 23 ballistic missiles launched by Russia overnight. This week alone, Russian attacks have killed more than 50 people.

Ukraine has long pressed its Western allies for more Patriot interceptors, but global inventories are under severe strain from multiple conflicts around the world. The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, in particular, used up stockpiles while driving up demand among Persian Gulf countries that Iran targeted in retaliatory attacks.

In response, Mr. Zelensky has urged Washington to grant Ukraine a license to produce the Patriot interceptors, permission that the United States has given only to Germany and Japan.

“We have long made the case that we are capable of producing such defensive weapons ourselves,” Mr. Zelensky said in an evening address on Monday. “If Ukraine were granted U.S. licenses to produce Patriots, our own production would be sufficient both to protect Ukraine and to help partners in need.”

The permission came, unexpectedly, on Wednesday. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting with Mr. Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey. “We’ll show them how to do it.”

Mr. Trump said Ukraine had the technical capacity to produce the advanced Patriot systems, praising the country’s booming defense industry. “They would be able to do it,” he said. “Most countries would not be able. They don’t have the talent. You have very talented people.”

The crucial question, however, is how quickly Ukraine can secure the license — Mr. Trump’s statement of his intentions is just the start of the process — and begin producing Patriot interceptors.

“I would be very surprised if you could set it up in under 12 months,” said Fabian Hoffmann, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo, a research group. He pointed to the plan to produce Patriots in Germany, which was first announced in 2024, with the first interceptors expected to reach the German military in 2027.

Judging by Mr. Trump’s comments on the sidelines of the NATO summit, his declaration on Wednesday did not follow a careful, formal deliberative process. Mr. Trump said that his administration had not yet informed any American company involved in manufacturing the Patriot systems of the decision to license production to Ukraine.

“We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right,” he said, without naming the company.

The State Department is responsible for approving the transfer of weapons from the United States to other countries, as well as issuing licenses for foreign nations to manufacture U.S.-designed munitions, following a review process laid out under federal law. Those same laws allow the president to waive the required reviews for reasons of a national security emergency.

It is unclear whether State Department officials were aware of Mr. Trump’s intent to allow Patriot production by Ukraine in advance of his comments on Wednesday.

Even after the license has been secured, setting up production of such sophisticated weapons would be a technically demanding process, and probably a lengthy one. For a start, Patriot interceptors are made up of many complex components that are often manufactured by subcontractors.

“The main issue with licensed production is it only makes sense if you can properly localize the supply chain,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “Final assembly is not the bottleneck. If I have all the components I can put them together in Ukraine.”

Another question will be whether a deal would be for the older model PAC-2 interceptors, made by RTX, or the more advanced PAC-3 interceptors, produced by Lockheed Martin. The latter are the most effective for shooting down ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s biggest vulnerability.

Serhii Honcharov, executive director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, said producing PAC-2 interceptors would be easier and faster for Ukraine. “But PAC-3 is what is crucially needed now,” he added.

Mr. Honcharov said he viewed Mr. Trump’s announcement “more as a political signal of U.S. support for Ukraine” as the war drags on than as a guarantee that additional military aid is on its way.

The Trump administration has pressed American defense contractors to ramp up production of missile interceptors, including THAAD and Standard Missiles, as well as Patriots. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that many of the big defense contractors rely on the same set of subcontractors for missile components, which could result in competition for scarce components.

The report also detailed how complex production of components can be. The propellants used in solid rocket motors for interceptor missiles must be carefully mixed, cast and cured. After assembly they are inspected with X-rays for cracks and other flaws, before they are tested, coated and finally painted.

There are nozzles and liners, igniters and thrust vector controls, and all of this is just for the motors. The seekers that guide the interceptor to the incoming missile are generally considered the most complicated component.

“You can’t get super exquisite seeker capability just by wanting it badly enough,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who was one of the report’s authors.

Mr. Karako said it would probably take several years to go from permission to production.

Ukraine’s defense industry had already begun working on its own, homegrown air-defense alternatives.

The Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, known for its attack drones and Flamingo cruise missile, announced plans to produce a domestic missile-defense system. The company began negotiating with European manufacturers for complex components, such as an agreement with the German company Hensoldt for advanced radars, announced last month.

The Fire Point plan is for a cheaper interceptor than the Patriots, which can cost more than $3.7 million per missile. The company said it was already producing and stockpiling missiles that could be used in the system once they acquired the advanced seekers that guide them to their targets.

The declaration, known as a communiqué, therefore appeared to be welcome news for NATO and its partners, including Ukraine, at the end of a two-day meeting that also featured Mr. Trump insulting European allies. His long-held complaints, however fiercely articulated, did not derail the business of the summit itself.

The allies reaffirmed “the trans-Atlantic bond” and said in the statement, “​An attack on one is an attack on all,” attempting to put to rest anxieties that Mr. Trump would not come to Europe’s aid in a crisis.

It added: “Allies stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

But notably, it did not repeat NATO’s pledge to make Ukraine a member of the alliance, a commitment that Mr. Trump opposes. And the 70 billion euro pledge includes 30 billion allocated by the European Union from an E.U. loan and funds already committed by individual countries.

NATO itself had promised to provide 40 billion euros to Ukraine last year. This declaration extended that promise to this year and the next.

Still, it was clear that Mr. Trump’s demand for more European spending on defense and his decision to move some American assets from Europe to the Indo-Pacific have pushed the alliance into a transition. The communiqué described the new goal of “a modernized alliance” with more European commitment and less involvement from the United States.

“European allies and Canada, working with the United States, are assuming greater responsibility for the alliance’s defense,” it said, adding that the goal is “a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO.”

“They’re hopeless, bad people,” he added.

Whether Mr. Trump has the desire or the power to follow through on his threat to treat a European ally as a pariah on a par with North Korea remains to be seen. He has often tried to bully other states — including China, Iran, Greenland and Oman — only to back down.

Because Spain is part of the European Union, its foreign trade is governed by the bloc’s deals. The most recent agreement was completed just a few weeks ago — although Mr. Trump has already threatened to violate it by posting on social media that he would impose a 100 percent tariff on countries that levied a digital services tax.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain shrugged off the threat Wednesday afternoon. “Commercial relations are woven between companies, not between governments,” he said.

Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the European Commission, pushed back on behalf of Spain, saying: “We expect the U.S. to honor its commitments under that joint statement, as we have honored ours.”

He added, “The commission will always ensure that the interests of the European Union and all our member states are fully protected.”

If Mr. Trump were to follow through on his threats to Spain, “he would be targeting all of the E.U., and that, of course, would lead to a trade war,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels.

Mr. Kirkegaard was skeptical of the president’s ability to enact the kind of sweeping restrictions that he promised.

“This is sort of Trump aggressively lashing out at some level, trying to shift attention away from what’s going on right now in the Middle East,” he said. “But does he have a legal vehicle to make the actual legal changes that he is articulating? Yeah, I think the answer to that question is very clearly no.”

As for tariffs, the U.S. Supreme Court in February curbed the president’s ability to impose duties on countries willy-nilly.

Mr. Kirkegaard added that Mr. Trump would most likely be deterred by the reaction of financial markets, which could look askance at a resumption of a trade war with Europe. Mr. Trump has often shown he is willing to back down when markets recoil from his policies.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized Spain for not committing to spend 5 percent of its gross domestic product on military spending in line with targets set by other members of the Atlantic alliance. Last fall, he threatened to impose higher tariffs on Spain than on the rest of the European Union in hopes of pressuring Madrid to get in line.

Spain has raised its defense spending and agreed to reach a level of 2.1 percent of the size of its economy.

Mr. Sánchez has further piqued Mr. Trump’s ire by criticizing the war in Iran as illegal and refusing to allow the United States to use its military bases during the conflict. That incident in March caused the president to threaten to cut off trade.

Spain’s welcoming policies toward immigrants have also irked Mr. Trump. And Mr. Sánchez has portrayed his program, including in an opinion article in The New York Times, as a better alternative to policies pursued by “MAGA-style leaders.”

Immigrants are a major reason that Spain’s economy is one of the fastest growing in Europe. Economic activity is projected to grow 2.3 percent this year, according to the Bank of Spain.

Spain is less dependent on the U.S. market than many other European countries. Trade between the two countries accounted for roughly 4.4 percent of Spain’s total output compared with around 10 percent of the euro area as a whole, said Miguel Otero-Iglesias, a senior analyst at Elcano Royal Institute in Spain. It also runs a trade deficit with the United States, making it less vulnerable to American pressure.

Still, targeted restrictions could bite. During Mr. Trump’s first term, his administration imposed tariffs on Spain’s black olives, arguing that producers received unfair subsidies. The policy was subsequently challenged and overturned by the World Trade Organization, but Spain’s share of the black olive market in the United States fell precipitously.

While Mr. Trump may no longer welcome Spanish trade or visitors, Spain will undoubtedly continue to open its arms to American investors, not to mention millions of tourists.

The United States is the biggest foreign direct investor in Spain. With some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe, in part because of the country’s build-out of renewable energy, Spain is also drawing in new investment related to energy-hungry artificial intelligence projects.

As the U.S. State Department wrote in its 2025 investment report: “Spain’s excellent world-class infrastructure, well-educated work force in critical sectors, large domestic market and relatively lower energy costs make it an appealing foreign investment destination.”

Carlos Barragán and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.

President Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that the United States would license Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air defense systems to protect itself from Russian airstrikes. “This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough,” Trump told Zelensky at the start of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

“Let’s say, ‘make them yourself’,” Trump said. He added: “We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right.” The American defense company Raytheon currently manufactures the sophisticated anti-ballistic air defense system.

This would be big news. Zelensky has repeatedly asked for licensing permissions, saying it would help speed up production of the sorely-needed interceptors, which are in short supply.

Describing his meetings behind closed doors, he boasted: “They said, ‘Sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that. Isn’t that nice?”

“Maybe they’re trying to get to me, and in a way, they did,” he said. “Because there was tremendous unity in that room.”

There did, in fact, appear to be some progress to come out of the summit.

NATO pledged $80 billion in military aid to Ukraine this year and next, though that represented a mix of both previous and new commitments. And Mr. Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that the United States would allow the country to manufacture Patriot air defense systems to protect itself from Russian missiles.

Despite saying last month that he would bring a gift that would make Mr. Erdogan “very happy,” the president said he still had a decision to make about whether to allow Turkey to purchase F-35 fighter jets. He said he had an “inclination” to do so because Turkey did not help Iran during the war with the United States and Israel, and because of what he has described as his deep friendship with its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Hundreds of journalists from around the world pushed, elbowed and yelled at one another to make it into a soaring auditorium here in Ankara for the chance to ask a question of a freewheeling American president who might say anything.

“That’s a lot of press, wow,” Mr. Trump said, sounding amused, as he took to the lectern. His secretaries of state, defense and treasury stood stone-faced behind him as he pin-balled his way through all sorts of topics over the next 40 minutes.

The war with Iran flared up again while Mr. Trump was in Ankara, just 1,000 miles from Tehran, and the fighting dominated the news conference.

The president said that the cease-fire with Iran was likely over after the United States carried out airstrikes on Tuesday against several Iranian targets. The Pentagon said they were in response to Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesday, Iran’s armed forces said they had attacked U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Early in the day at the summit, Mr. Trump unleashed verbally on Iran, referring to the country as “scum” and its leaders as “sick people.”

He was particularly incensed by what he characterized as the Iranians’ dishonest, tricksy negotiating style. “There’s something wrong with them,” he fumed. “We said, ‘Go and do your funeral stuff,’ and instead of that, they start shooting rockets at ships.”

By “funeral stuff” he meant the nationwide funeral procession attended by millions of people for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader killed in the war Mr. Trump launched alongside Israel in February.

“They’re cuckoo,” Mr. Trump said, tapping an index finger against his cranium.

The NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, sat impassively by his side, legs crossed and hands clasped over one knee.

A major motif of this year’s summit involved European leaders deciding whether it was politically advantageous to at last dispense with the niceties and fight back against Mr. Trump, as the leaders of Spain and Italy have started to do. The time when all European heads of state tried to play nice with the mercurial American president is decidedly over.

Early in the day, Mr. Trump made more menacing comments about taking over Greenland, and repeatedly criticized Germany, Italy, Britain and France for not helping the United States in its war with Iran.

Spain in particular came in for a drubbing from Mr. Trump on Wednesday morning. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he said.

His spat with the Spaniards started when they refused Mr. Trump’s demand that European nations raise their military spending, then kicked into a higher gear after Spain denied the use of its military bases to U.S. forces attacking Iran.

“Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits,” Mr. Trump said.

He did not say what he meant by visits, and he did not acknowledge that the 27-nation European Union, which includes Spain, negotiates trade jointly.

Mr. Trump went on to call the Spanish “hopeless, bad people” and reiterated several more times that the United States would no longer trade with the country of 50 million people.

The president struck a sharply different tone at the evening news conference closing out the gathering. “This was a tremendously successful summit,” he said, thanking Mr. Rutte “for doing a fantastic job.”

“Spain has been very bad,” he added, “but you know, Italy has been good, and almost all of the countries have been good. They just had a bad moment.”

Mr. Rutte himself said the summit had solidified “a stronger, a fairer, and a more capable NATO.” And he tried to soft-pedal the American president’s attacks on allies.

“It not only makes us stronger in the end, we also come together,” Mr. Rutte said. “Today is evidence of that, and I always know that President Trump and the U.S. has completely committed to NATO.”

NATO leaders have issued a six-paragraph communiqué, affirming their commitment to the alliance’s collective defense pact, that an attack on one ally is an attack on all. The statement also reinforced the alliance’s commitment to Ukraine, promising $80 billion in military aid both this year and next from Europe and Canada. “Allies stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the communiqué said.

The communiqué did not specifically commit to hold another leaders’ summit next year.

The allies also restated their opposition to Iran ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. They also called on Iran “to fully respect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Russia launched 169 drones and seven missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Wednesday morning. Most of the drones were intercepted, but 30 evaded air defenses — as did all seven of the ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine. The local authorities said that the strikes had killed two people in the Kharkiv region, in the northeast, and one in the Kyiv region, which has come under especially heavy and repeated attacks over the past week.

Last Thursday, Russia pummeled Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, with ballistic missiles and drones, killing 31 people, many of whom were buried in the rubble of apartments.

Mr. Zelensky went to see the destruction that afternoon, meeting with emergency workers picking through what remained of a partially collapsed nine-story building. Search-and-rescue efforts in the area continued for a further two days.

Explosions rocked Kyiv again on Monday, on the eve of the NATO summit. The barrage killed at least 19 people in the capital and surrounding area. In that attack, Russia fired 68 missiles and 351 drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. None of the 23 ballistic missiles were intercepted by air defenses, the air force noted, underscoring what Mr. Zelensky said was a shortage of Patriot interceptors.

“It is extremely important for the world, first and foremost America and our European partners, to emerge from the NATO summit in Ankara with strong decisions to support our air defense, and thus the protection of ordinary people’s lives,” Mr. Zelenky wrote on social media on Monday.

Body parts had been cleared but debris still covered one Kyiv street on Tuesday, where a grieving mother sat in shock amid the rubble. Her daughter, Oleksandra, had been killed in the strike, along with her daughter’s fiancée and future in-laws. Neighbors and relatives drifted in and out of burned homes on the street, searching for photographs in the ashes.

The Kremlin has said that the recent strikes are a response to long-range Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil. Officials in Kyiv have dismissed such claims as outrageous, saying that Ukraine’s long-range campaign was a response to four years of Russian bombardment.

Ukraine says the goal of the long-range strike campaign — which has targeted military production facilities and oil refineries, leading to fuel shortages across Russia — is to take the war deeper into Russia and push Mr. Putin to end the conflict.

On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine had targeted the Russian regions of Saratov, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan overnight.

“Ukraine is giving a fully justified response to Russia striking our country and prolonging the war,” he wrote on social media from Ankara, as more air-raid alarms blared in Kyiv.

The Russian authorities confirmed that there were drone strikes in Saratov and Tatarstan; there was no immediate comment from the authorities about Bashkortostan.

Oleksandr Chubko and Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting.

On Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a veiled threat, accusing European nations of trying to prolong the war and saying they were celebrating Ukrainian attacks that have left civilians dead.

“We must also analyze the involvement of each of them in actual combat operations,” Mr. Putin said, addressing his military commanders. “We need this analysis to make responsible decisions in the future. In any case, we may need it.”

Days later, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the S.V.R., put out a statement accusing the British government of being behind a Ukrainian attack on a museum in Sevastopol, a city on the Black Sea, that houses a famous panorama depicting a battle from the Crimean War.

The British government did not respond to a request for comment about the accusation.

There has also been tension on Russia’s northwestern border with Finland and the Baltics.

Last month, Finnish lawmakers voted to remove a Cold War-era ban on nuclear weapons, which would allow NATO allies to take the weapons through the country or host them there. Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia, joined NATO in 2023 in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, said the move “creates genuine threats to Russia’s national security” and would require Moscow to respond with political and military steps.

She said “blind Russophobia” in Finland had prevailed “over the pragmatic common sense that we had always believed to be characteristic of the Finns.”

Lithuania, a NATO member that, along with Poland, shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region, is considering lifting its own nuclear ban.

About eight months ago, Finland and the Baltic nations withdrew from the Ottawa Treaty, a 1997 agreement that bans antipersonnel land mines, realizing the weaponry would be crucial to blunting a Russian advance on their territory.

In May, Russia’s foreign intelligence service accused Latvia of planning to host Ukrainian drone launchers and said membership in the alliance would not protect the small nation.

Latvia denied the accusations, accusing Moscow of mounting a disinformation campaign, and warned the following month that Russia was preparing “military provocations” in the Baltics and Poland.

Stephen Castle contributed reporting from London.

Mr. Trump on Wednesday expressed frustration with NATO over the issue. “Greenland is a big problem for us,” he said. “We need it for protection of the world, not just the United States, and it’s very important. It doesn’t help Denmark.”

In January, Mr. Trump suggested that he could use military force to take control of the island. In response, Denmark developed plans to blow up airfields in Greenland in the event of an American invasion, and Ms. Frederiksen openly wondered how long the United States would remain an ally.

In recent months, Mr. Trump has backed off his most serious threats, with Washington turning to negotiations to press for more influence — including pushing Denmark for access to three more military bases there, demanding effective veto power over any major investment deals and opening a bigger consulate in Nuuk, the island’s capital.

Mr. Trump’s proposals seem to have drawn Greenland closer to Denmark, as they try to present a united front against the American advances.

“We are a sovereign state and we need everyone to respect our territorial integrity and our sovereignty,” Ms. Frederiksen said.

“Article 5 is our insurance,” she added, referring to NATO’s collective defense agreement.

The European Union publicly backed Denmark and Greenland after Mr. Trump’s outburst.

“Decisions about the future of Greenland are for Greenlanders and Danes to decide,” Olof Gill, a spokesman for the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, said on Wednesday.

“Territorial integrity, national sovereignty and inviolability of borders are fundamental principles of international law,” he said.

Koba Ryckewaert contributed reporting from Brussels.

Ukraine’s leader had planned to press the issue with allies at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week. Before a meeting with Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday, Mr. Trump appeared to pre-empt those conversations.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots,” the U.S. president said as he sat alongside Mr. Zelensky, taking questions from journalists. “That’s really cool, right? This way you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough.”

Mr. Trump appeared to suggest that the American defense company that manufactures Patriots had not yet been informed, but said they would be “thrilled.”

It was not immediately clear if Mr. Trump meant that Ukraine would be allowed to produce Patriot batteries, interceptor missiles, or both.

Still, Mr. Trump’s comments were good news for Mr. Zelensky, who was clear before the summit that he wanted Patriot missiles and the related defense systems to counter Russian ballistic missiles.

“This is our top priority,” he had said on Monday after a wave of deadly Russian strikes. Those attacks — and another large-scale attack on July 2 — killed 50 people in Kyiv, the capital, and surrounding area.

Mr. Zelensky has said that Ukraine’s “insufficient supply of interceptor missiles” contributed to the heavy toll.

Interceptors are one part of a costly American-made Patriot mobile surface-to-air defense system that also includes advanced radar, a control van and missile launchers that fire the interceptors — like ammunition from a gun — to stop the target in midair.

Mr. Zelensky had previously said that a license to make Patriot systems would have benefits beyond his country.

“If Ukraine were granted licenses by the United States to produce Patriot systems, our production capacity would be sufficient not only to defend Ukraine but also to help partners that need them,” he said.

Ukraine needs more Patriot systems to protect its major cities, from Odesa in the south to Kyiv and to Kharkiv in the east, said Solomiia Bobrovska, a member of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence.

Both Russia and Ukraine have sought to focus Mr. Trump’s attention on ending the war after he has spent months dealing with Iran. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump again said he thought that Russia and Ukraine were keen to reach a settlement.

Yehor Cherniev, the head of the permanent delegation of Ukraine to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said he did not believe Russia was ready to make peace, even if Mr. Trump wanted to.

Mr. Cherniev insisted that the way to end Russian aggression was through stronger support for Ukraine.

“Any delay in financial assistance and in the delivery of missiles for Ukraine’s Patriot air defense systems significantly increases the risk of a direct war between Russia and NATO,” he said. “If Russia is not significantly weakened on the battlefield in the near future, it could launch an attack on Poland or the Baltic States.”

Soon after he arrived in Ankara on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky urged NATO leaders to move fast.

“Europe needs affordable, mass produced antiballistic systems as soon as possible,” he said in a speech at the alliance’s Defense Industry Forum. “In fact, today.”