Turkish police dressed in black on street corners, giant blue banners proclaiming “The Key to Peace” and a welcoming ceremony for Donald Trump.

This may be a NATO summit, but this is the president of the United States for whom the metaphorical red carpet has been rolled out.

Trump has made no secret of his disdain for NATO. He says he only came to Ankara this year because the summit is organized by his friend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made it a point to go to the airport to meet Trump in person.

The two men then walked arm in arm as a band played Stars and Stripes, and Turkish air force planes flew overhead, leaving a trail of red, white and blue smoke.

There was always the risk that Trump would be something of a disruptor at this summit. And indeed, his incendiary words have marked the carefully crafted image of unity at this crucial meeting.

Shortly after landing, he uttered a throwaway line repeating that the United States should really seize Greenland, an island that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member.

However, he acknowledged that his previous thoughts on this issue had altered his relations with NATO. They certainly did.

Denmark’s prime minister has said that if the United States ever took Greenland by force, it would mean the end of the alliance.

Then there is Iran. Trump is clearly still bitter that his NATO allies did not join his preferred war earlier this year, a conflict launched without consulting the allies and which wreaked havoc on the global economy.

He even criticized the UK despite Sir Keir Starmer allowing it to launch airstrikes on Iranian missile sites from British air bases.

Referring to the UK prime minister, Trump said: “He said no, we’ll help after the war is over. I told him I don’t want that kind of help. We didn’t need any help at all. He was kind of testing the people, he was testing to see if they would be there or not because for a long time I’ve said we helped them, but I’m not sure they were there to help us.”

The British delegation here wanted to promote its defense collaboration with its European partners.

But Sir Keir arrived at Ankara, his last NATO summit, with a Defense Investment Plan derided as falling billions of pounds short of the requirements set out in last year’s much-lauded Strategic Defense Review.

But beyond the optics and speeches, NATO delegates have dedicated themselves to the serious task of rearming Europe and seeing how its defense industries can better cooperate.

Large contracts have been announced for a new fleet of transport aircraft to be built by Airbus. NATO’s aging fleet of AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) early warning aircraft will be replaced by Sweden’s GlobeEye aircraft.