Why Does Trump Trust Turkey So Much?

President Donald Trump flew to Ankara this week for the nato summit—and admitted he almost didn’t go. What drew him? Not the alliance America built and bankrolled for 77 years. One man: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“We’ve had, right from the beginning, good chemistry,” President Trump said. “We’ve had a very special relationship. … If it weren’t held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, … it’s possible that I wouldn’t have attended.”

[BRIEF]

Turkey could have bombed Israel during the Iran war, President Trump said, claiming that he was the only reason it held back. If true, that’s a shocking statement: America is cozying up to and empowering a nation that shares Iran’s deranged goal of wiping Israel off the map.

Stop and consider what America is entrusting to this “friend.”

• American military bases sit on Turkish soil—in one of the most strategic locations on Earth.
• American nuclear weapons are stored there.
• American trainers teach Turkish troops to operate American equipment. We saw in Afghanistan how that ends: a hostile army armed and trained by us.
• President Trump said yesterday he would lift the sanctions on Turkey—which have been in place since 2020, when Turkey invested in Russia’s S-400 air defense system—giving it access to American defense equipment.
• He may even sell Turkey the F-35, one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world, over the protests of Israel’s prime minister.

Giving Turkey F-35s “would destroy the power balance in the Middle East, because Turkey, I think, has aggressive aspirations,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cnn. “When you give them that power, you’re going to see aggression in its wake.”

• This is the same Turkey that recently unveiled its own intercontinental ballistic missile—in a promotional video depicting the missile arcing toward America’s East Coast.

Erdoğan has played America. Say a few nice words, shower the president with compliments, and the doors swing open. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). Our leaders are more focused on pleasing men than on pleasing God—and that makes a nation dangerously easy to flatter.

“Turkey is going to betray America,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote last October. Psalm 83 describes a confederacy of moderate Islamic nations, including Edom (Turkey), that will ally with Assyria (Germany).

“They have taken crafty counsel against thy people …. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verses 3-4).

“Crafty counsel” refers to flattering words that mask collusion. And that alliance is forming before your eyes.

• While Trump praises Erdoğan, Europe is racing to embrace Turkey: Germany’s foreign minister hails its “impressive capabilities”; Poland is buying its drones; Italy’s Leonardo is partnering with Turkish arms-maker Baykar.

America keeps opening its house to enemies because they say nice things about us. That is ancient Israel’s sin all over again: trusting the enemy instead of trusting God.

Trump: Ceasefire ‘Over’

President Donald Trump said today he thinks the ceasefire with Iran is “over,” commenting: “I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum.” He said negotiations were “just a waste of time.”

• In 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday, Iran attacked three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Why? “Despite the threat of strikes, conservatives in Tehran have watched with rising alarm as traffic that was deterred from crossing during the war now ply the U.S.-backed route near Oman,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Iran needs to get ships to stick with its route if it is going to charge them tolls.
• In retaliation, the U.S. struck Iranian targets in the Hormuz area and revoked a waiver for Iran to sell its oil.

Three weeks ago, Trump said the peace deal represented Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” That was wishful thinking untethered from reality.

There has been a lot of that driving American policy over the course of this conflict. But underlying truths do not bend to what the Apostle Paul called “will worship.”

Macron Makes History in Syria

French President Emmanuel Macron commenced a state visit to Damascus Monday, actively working to restore France’s historic links to Syria.

• Macron became the first Western leader in Syria since the overthrow of the Assad regime in 2024.
• Yesterday, the two countries agreed to exchange ambassadors and signed cooperation agreements in finance, transport and health care. Also, French shipping group cma cgm signed a deal to manage air cargo freight at Damascus’s international airport.

Syria, like Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, was once part of the French colonial empire. While France still has strong cultural and political links with its other former Arab colonies, Syria, under the Assad regime, kept its distance.

• One cultural link binding the two is Syria’s large population of Christians. Before its civil war began in 2011, it had one of the Middle East’s largest Christian populations.

Assadist Syria, as well as Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, used to be proxies of Iran. Prophecies in Daniel 11 and Psalm 83 foretold that they would leave Iran’s orbit and become allies of Europe. Macron’s visit is helping to further this prophecy’s fulfillment. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s free booklet The King of the South explains this in detail.

Germany Using Norway to Conquer Space

Germany is using Norway to conquer space, and the partnership stretches far beyond rockets.

• German start-up Isar Aerospace will launch imaging satellites for Planet Labs Germany from Norway’s Andøya spaceport as early as this year.
• The German military is secretly planning up to 1,200 satellites in the next few years, Handelsblatt reported on July 7.
• Berlin has earmarked $40 billion for military space development through 2030. It wants to be, in its own words, “a true space power.”

Andøya is one of only two spaceports in continental Europe. Norway and Germany signed a space-cooperation mandate on April 28, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s first state visit to Norway, in March, was to the spaceport.

Space is one thread in a fast-thickening web of connections between Germany and Norway:

• Germany’s Thyssenkrupp and Norway’s Kongsberg are jointly building Type 212CD attack submarines—six each, plus 12 for Canada in a $70 billion deal.
• Norway chose German tanks over South Korean models in 2023, a decision that its defense minister acknowledged has “a political aspect.”
• February’s Hansa Arrangement deepened cooperation in space surveillance, maritime security and defense.

Germany is Norway’s “closest and most important partner in the EU,” says Norway’s defense minister, who said he talks to his German counterpart more than any other.

• “It is essential that we integrate and standardize our military capabilities in Europe—the same equipment, the same ammunition, the same training, the same command structures,” he said in February.
• “We have seen how much tensions between the United States and Europe can escalate,” warned Norwegian member of parliament Peter Frolich. Europe, he says, must become more “autonomous.”

Flashback: June 10 marked 86 years since Norway surrendered to Nazi Germany. Roughly 1,000 Norwegian political prisoners and Jews were killed under the Nazi puppet regime.

• Today, Norway is again a vehicle for German ambitions. But this time, Berlin wants a launchpad and a naval partner, not Swedish iron ore.

Bible prophecy warned a German-led European superpower would rise against the United States and Britain in the end time. Revelation 17 describes 10 kings uniting under Germany, called Assyria in Bible prophecy, and Isaiah 10 shows it will soon start the most destructive war in history. This partnership is one more example of Europe uniting under Germany’s lead.

Go deeper: Read Gerald Flurry’s “Germany Is Arming for World War III.”

IN OTHER NEWS

Dragon fire from the deep: Chinese naval forces test-fired a nuclear-capable strategic missile from a submarine in the Pacific on Monday, in the latest manifestation of the nation’s accelerating military buildup.

Right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen will run for president in next year’s election, she announced yesterday after a French court shortened the ban placed on her holding public office.

Germany to arm its spies? Germany’s legislature is considering a bill that would allow spies in its federal intelligence service, the BND, potentially to use lethal force if necessary, Bild reported yesterday. The agency is currently prohibited from policing, conducting raids and arrests, or engaging in sabotage or assassination.

Israeli government doesn’t want to sell shipping company: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd’s proposed acquisition of Zim, Israel’s largest shipping company, Spiegel reported yesterday. Among the reasons for concern is that Hapag-Lloyd is partly owned by Qatari and Saudi Arabian national wealth funds.

Bavaria used a SpaceX rocket on Tuesday to launch its own satellites, the first German state to do so. Their sensors will be used to monitor forest damage from beetles and natural disasters.

Nigel Farage stands down, and runs again: Reform Party leader Nigel Farage is accused of breaking Britain’s parliamentary rules by failing to declare large donations he received before running for office. Farage responded yesterday by resigning his seat in Parliament, triggering a byelection, in which he will run. If successful, he will return to Parliament with proof that voters still want him despite the accusations. However, other major parties are refusing to contest the vote, turning it into more of a farce, in which Farage will run only against joke candidates like Count Binface.