Last week, US European allies are searching for alternatives after the Trump administration appears to be against a system based on rules that the US and its transatlantic friends have been building together for decades. It was there.
Pete Hegsett and Donald not only reached European politics and denounced its leaders and interfered on behalf of the far right in the future German elections, but also nullified US military support for Ukraine. – President Trump has cheated on one-sided peace. Talk to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
The US is a Western superpower, and the European Union, a large part of Europe, is an economic market of 500 million people, but has been spending its period in political, military and commercial quarter since the end of World War II. The continent is a cliff of intergenerational change.
European leaders “can’t accept the fact that the US is no longer the US,” and the continent could no longer call it an ally, former French Prime Minister Dominique des Villepin said said at the briefing.
“In weeks and months, we’ll see Europeans waving and asking the government about a very strong government,” said Des Villepin, who served under French President Jacques Chillac in the 2000s. He spoke.
Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, which was to focus on ferocious attacks on European culture, commitment to democracy, migration policies, and “internal dangers,” and wars in Ukraine, was founded in Washington. It tore a decades of alliance.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymiazelensky, Vance’s silence on the war for almost three years also sent a clear message to Kiev. “Decades of old relations between Europe and America are over,” he told a conference in Munich. “From now on, things will be different and Europe will need to adapt to that.”
Vance’s Ukraine layoff spoke to the broader view that the US no longer considers European involvement in negotiations with Russia essential to peace negotiations.
The Kremlin has framed a recent phone call between Putin and Trump as a shift towards peace talks between Russia and the United States. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is planning to travel to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Zelenskyy was still excluded from discussions in Saudi Arabia late on Saturday and remained on the sidelines, with European leaders sharing the unrest of the Ukrainian president.
After years of inconsistency and dithering, EU and British leaders are worried that there will be no seats at the negotiation table, which could restructure the boundaries of the allies. , in response to concerns, the US is moving forward without them.
“Europe is urgently in need of its own plan of action on Ukraine,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tass said on Saturday. “Or other global players will decide about our future. It’s not necessarily in line with our own interests.”
Still, Ukraine is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to loose relations between Europe and the US over policy and ideology. At the heart of Vance’s speech was a direct attack on European democracy and culture.
The Vice President told the meeting that he was not too concerned about the threat of Russia or China, and that he was not even concerned about “the European setback from some of the most fundamental values shared with the United States.”
National Intelligence Director Tarsi Gabbard took a different approach, engulfing Munich’s waters somewhat muddy, saying, “Thalts from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea demand a united front.”
But analysts say Trumpist foreign policy — accompanied by halting almost all funds from the US International Development Agency and attempting to shake up Kiev — may create opportunities for American rivals .
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that it would like to respond to the events in Munich, “strengthening solidarity” with Germany and the European Union and “practicing multilateralism.”
Kiel Giles, a senior fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, said European leaders could hope for more of the same.
“It’s surprising, not just China, but other enemies in Europe weren’t taking advantage of the division and gap that this presents,” Giles told NBC News.
Meanwhile, Vance’s criticism of European leaders of the growing far-right parties in Europe was seen as support for those parties, particularly in the context of meetings with German far-right co-leader Alice Weidel. . Alternate to the German (AFD) party.
The AFD is poised to play Kingmaker in the alliance that emerged from the election in Germany next week. There has long been a taboo for alliances with the party that won the support of key Trump adviser Elon Musk.
Olaf Scholz, the usually mildly calm German prime minister, accused Vance of interfering in German elections. “That’s not appropriate, not particularly between friends and allies. We firmly reject it,” he told the meeting.
Perhaps even more prominent is that German conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz felt the need to publicly state that he hopes the US will respect the outcome of future elections.
Still, according to Chatham House Giles, European leaders had little reason to be surprised despite Vance’s fierce attacks.
Giles ignores decades of signalling that Europe relies on American defense and “wears thin,” Vance’s rhetoric on immigration and his outreach to the far right, with Europe He said he ignored the resonance with voters.
This week’s Vance and Hegses reflect Trump’s longstanding view that Europe should contribute more to its own defense.
Among the latest results of that policy, the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper said, as the latest outcome of that policy, British Prime Minister Kiel Starmer prepared to raise his country’s defense spending ahead of his visit to meet Trump. It was reported that he had done so.
Starmer hopes to win favors in Washington with increased funding when visiting at critical times for both Ukrainian consultations and the political balance of EU neighbors.
Next week, Germany will go to the polls with an election where the AFD is expected to work well. This may be the first test of the shift Vance described in Munich.
The split “has not been invented from thin air,” Giles said. “There’s a reason populist parties all over the continent portray the deep pulsation of frustration with European elites.”
