Trump administration officials have not been quiet about their scorn against Europe. However, the light empty appears to be even bigger behind the closed room.
Europeans responded with a mix of anger and anger to the publication of some of the debates among top-rank Trump administration officials conducted on messaging app signals. The debate about the planned strike against Yemen is filled with comments portraying Europeans as geopolitical parasites, revealed in the Atlantic on Monday.
“I hate bailing out Europeans again,” Vice President J.D. Vice President Vance wrote, arguing that strikes would benefit Europe much more than the US.
“I fully share the disgust of the European free roads,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegses later replied. “That's pathetic.”
The exchange seemed to show real feelings and judgment – the Europeans are ridiculous, and that American military action, no matter how clear the interests of America, should be paid in some way by other beneficiaries.
The chat member was identified as “SM” and was believed to be Stephen Miller, President Trump's top aide. “If Europe doesn't reward, what? If the US is to significantly restore freedom of navigation, more economic benefits must be extracted in return,” SM writes.
Even the consumer chat app, and even the consumer chat app, have made such discussions with operational details, and the obvious disregard by security protocol management personnel has prompted concerns that Russia and China are listening.
“President Putin is currently unemployed: there's no point in spying anymore,” wrote Natalie Roisau, a member of the European Parliament, in X, saying that now there's been a leak from the Americans herself. “It's no longer worth destroying Ukraine. Trump will take care of it.”
The exchange commentary is the latest blow for one of the world's most renowned alliances, which has forged construction and strengthening for generations, but the Trump administration has weakened in just a few weeks.
“It is clear that the transatlantic relationship has ended, and there is at best a sloppy daub,” said Natalie Tockey, director of the Italian international association, who previously advised EU civil servants. “And in the worst case, and in the nearest case, there are aggressive attempts to undermine Europe.”
The European Union is, in many ways, an antithesis of the principle that Trump and his colleagues defend. The block is built around a rules-based embrace of international trade. It was at the forefront of climate-related regulations and social media users protection.
Europe has been on the alert since giving a speech at a security conference held in Munich last month, questioning European values and their democracy, shocking European leaders. He followed with warnings that Europe was at risk of “civilized suicide.”
If US-European relations are merely a deal, it is relatively easy for Europeans to spend more on the military and give some sort of victory, said François Haysbourg, a French analyst and former defense official.
But in Vance's speech attacking European democracy in Munich, even in a new public exchange, European disgust is more than a deal.
“Vance was very clear. We don't share the same values,” Haysbourg said.
He and others pointed out that, like Anna Sauerbrey, the foreign editor of Die Zeit, explicit demand for payments, rather than political and military support, is new, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it ignored the fact that “the US is dependent on global trade,” she said, and “France, the UK and the Netherlands deployed ships in the region for the same purpose.” Americans “continually look down on European efforts,” she said.
For example, China acquires most of its oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz and engages in much of its export trade with Europe through the same sea route. But no one is asking China to pay, Tocco noted.
For months, Washington has sent barbed wire statements and actions in a European way.
Trump has made it clear that he wants to acquire Greenland, Danish semi-autonomous territory, despite warnings that European leaders will defend the integrity of their territory. Vance's wife, Usha Vance and national security adviser Mike Waltz, are visiting the island uninvited this week, the government said in an excited response.
Trump has also repeatedly warned that Europe must pay more for its own defenses, threatening not to reach aid from Ukraine, threatening to do so well in the country's lack of pay. He simultaneously deployed a plan to slap large tariffs in Europe, claiming that the European Union was created to “screw” America.
Danish politician Chrisle Chardemonse, a member of the central left of the European Parliament, said the way the US has been talking about the EU recently “is not helping.”
“Can you start talking to each other as an ally, not an enemy?” she said.
Despite European leaders trying to maintain friendship, they are competing to strengthen their defensive spending.
They met in Paris on Thursday to discuss Ukraine, and the NATO Foreign Minister will meet early next month to discuss progress.
They are also in a hurry to enter into a trade agreement with the United States. The EU trade commissioner headed to Washington on Tuesday to speak with his American counterparts.
But America's increasingly hostile attitudes towards Europe have led continental officials to think of a future in which the respected relationships that may never be the same in the Atlantic, the foundation upon which decades of relative peace and prosperity are built.
“There are changes on a scale that we haven't seen since 1945,” EU diplomat Kaja Karas reflected last week a line from the bloc's defense preparation plan.
Divorce from the US is an expensive outlook. The EU has already announced initiatives that could be worth around $865 billion to help European countries achieve desirable military spending levels.
Still, group chat leaks highlight why divorce is necessary. The United States is not, in fact, a rhetorical or in fact, a once-trusted ally.
It is very rare and perhaps illegal to be discussed on messaging apps rather than a safer means of communication.
Ben Hodges, a former European commander of US military, said: Aside from the big changes, people “assuming America is unreliable.”
