How a viral video and a Donald Trump tantrum derailed the Nato summit

Analysis: At a time when the alliance is facing fundamental questions, it was the American president who went home early

It was meant to be a key moment of the Nato summit, its 70th and one of the most important in recent times: the head of the alliance’s most powerful state delivering the closing words to the historic occasion.

Donald Trump’s press conference had been choreographed to be the final one in the gathering, with Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and the alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, the supporting acts leading up to it.

Members of the media had bagged seats at Press Conference Room Number One at the Grove hotel in Watford, and broadcasters rehearsed their questions. Diplomats and military officers said they, too, were going to turn up, keen to hear the president on a range of critical challenges from Russia and China to terrorism and cyberconflicts.

But then, an hour before he was due to speak, it was announced that Mr Trump had cancelled his appearance, saying he had done “plenty of press conferences” already and would be heading home.

Mr Trump may have had a particular one in mind, an impromptu one lasting 40 minutes, which was the subject of much mirth in a leaked video in which Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau – with Princess Anne alongside them – are seen apparently mocking him.

Mr Trump, according to diplomatic sources, was furious about the emergence of the video which was posted on Twitter by Canadian broadcaster CBC. He described Mr Trudeau – whose voice could be heard clearly joking about the US president in the video – “two faced” and made a point of stressing that he had rebuked the Canadian prime minister for his country not spending the Nato commitment of 2 per cent of GDP on defence.

The news of the US president’s cancellation came just as Mr Johnson was about to start his own press conference. Asked about the laughter by him and others in the video, he responded: “Complete nonsense, I don’t know where that come from.”

The prime minister, who has done his utmost to avoid Mr Trump – viewed as toxic by a significant proportion of the British electorate – during his visit is said to have been relieved when told the president would be departing without any further endorsement of him for the impending general election.

Mr Macron was next on stage. He had been called “nasty” and “disrespectful” by Mr Trump on the eve of the summit for criticism he had made of Nato, calling it, among other things, “brain dead”. The US president failed to mention that he had himself dismissed the alliance as “obsolete” and repeatedly criticised its leaders.

But their bilateral meeting on Tuesday – before the video emerged – has been described by diplomatic sources as being emollient. The two leaders are said to have agreed on the need for constructive dialogue with Russia, the imperative to be fully aware of the threat international terrorism posed to the west, and the need for Nato members to raise defence spending. The French president turned down, however, Mr Trump’s demand, one which had been made previously, that France should take back its nationals among the captured Isis fighters in Syria.

Mr Macron said he wasn’t “going to comment on stolen videos”. His press conference lasted twice as long as Mr Johnson’s. In a summit where policy has been overshadowed by clashing personalities, he could be said to have emerged the winner on a number of fronts.

Before flying to London, Turkey’s President Erdogan had threatened he would refuse to approve plans to defend Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia if Russia attacked unless Nato proscribed the Kurdish People’s Protection Unites (YPG) as a terrorist organisation. Mr Macron had been a target last month of Ankara’s wrath for hosting an official from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which is spearheaded by the YPG, in Paris.

Mr Macron had refused to back down, saying: “The common enemy today is the terrorist groups. I’m sorry to say, we don’t have the same definition of terrorism around the table. When I look at Turkey they are fighting against those who fought with us shoulder to shoulder against Isis and sometimes they work with Isis proxies.”

Mr Erdogan responded by saying that it was Mr Macron who was the one truly brain dead.

A meeting hosted in Downing Street by Mr Johnson between Mr Erdogan, Mr Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to be a heated affair. Instead, say officials, it was relatively calm, with plans to meet again in two months’ time.

At the end Turkey dropped its veto on the defence plan for the Baltic States and Nato. In a communiqué the alliance’s leaders agreed to a “forward looking reflection process”, an assurance which allowed President Erdogan to drop his veto without losing face.

Secretary-General Stoltenberg praised Turkey saying: “We were able to take decisions and to move this alliance forward. All allies have agreed the commitment to article 5, which is one for all and all for one and that is an iron-clad commitment.”

The “reflection process” would address the “brain dead” issue by examining the alliance’s decision making procedure, which Mr Macron can claim as a victory.

But the fact is that on its 70th birthday Nato faces fundamental questions, raised by its own leaders, over its raison d’etre, its aims and directions and the need to decide on who exactly are the main enemies.

It also remains the fact that once again the name most frequently mentioned at an international conference was that of Donald Trump, the extraordinary American president who manages to make news merely by cancelling a press conference.