The North Atlantic alliance leaders will meet July 11–12, 2018, in Brussels—NATO's first full-fledged summit since President Donald Trump's inauguration. It follows the three-hour “getting-to-know-you” meeting in May 2017; that dinner gathering focused largely on themes President Trump had raised on the campaign trail—that NATO allies need to spend more on defense and that the alliance should do more to fight terrorism (particularly the Islamic State). President Trump's criticisms of NATO and his tone sent shocks through the alliance. But the event was not intended to chart a comprehensive course for NATO or for U.S. policy; any administration would struggle with that task in its first four months, and particularly the Trump administration, which still has not filled out its national security team.
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