Donald Trump renewed his call for the USA to control Greenland on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, just as the NATO summit opened in Ankara. The statement landed while police in Ankara had already broken up a small demonstration and arrested about 20 people.
Thousands of protestors also marched in central Istanbul against the NATO summit. The day paired a hard-edged geopolitical message from Trump with street protests in Turkey, putting the summit under pressure before its formal agenda could settle.
Istanbul protest and Ali Gültekin
In central Istanbul, thousands of protestors from leftist, pro-Palestinian and Kurdish parties marched against the NATO summit and ended the demonstration peacefully and without arrests. Ali Gültekin said, "We are here to protest the hosting in Ankara — at a cost of millions of dollars — of NATO, an organization we regard as a massacre machine established to preserve global hegemony."
Ali Gültekin also chanted, "Murderer, USA, get out of our country." Günçağ Aydın, speaking for the leftist Red Party, said, "Hundreds of our friends have been detained, but we continue to speak out, saying that NATO is a coalition of what we regard as killers and imperialist powers."
Ankara police and summit pressure
Earlier Tuesday, police in Ankara broke up a small demonstration during the NATO summit and arrested about 20 people. That response made the summit’s opening day more than a ceremonial gathering: the political dispute around NATO was already visible in the streets before the leaders’ program could take over.
Trump’s Greenland line also sat beside the summit’s broader message of alliance politics, where a U.S. president pressing for control of Greenland meets public protests in Turkey accusing NATO of global hegemony. The result is a summit day defined by two separate kinds of pressure — one from Washington, one from the street.
Trump Greenland at NATO summit
For readers watching the summit, the immediate takeaway is that Trump reopened the Greenland question at the same moment NATO leaders were gathering in Ankara. The source does not say what, if anything, Trump wants to do next about Greenland or how NATO leaders responded, leaving the statement as the day’s sharpest signal rather than a finished policy move.
