There are Donald Trump’s government officials who have not hidden their disdain for Europe. But animosity seems to be even greater behind closed doors.
The Europeans reacted with a mixture of exasperation and outrage at the publication of fragments of a discussion between high -ranking officials of the Trump government, carried out in the signal messaging application. The discussion, on a planned attack against Yemen, was full of comments that portrayed Europeans as geopolitical parasites, and was revealed Monday in The Atlantic, whose editor was inadvertently included in the conversation.
“I simply hate getting back to Europe,” Vice President JD Vance wrote, stating that attacks would benefit Europe much more than the United States.
“I fully share your aversion about European use,” said Pete Hegesh, Secretary of Defense. “It’s pathetic.”
The exchange seemed to show real feelings and judgments: that Europeans take free advantages and that any US military action, however clearly it also reduces in the interest of the United States, must be paid in some way by other beneficiaries.
A chat member identified as “SM”, and that it is believed to be Stephen Miller, a high -ranking advisor to President Trump, suggested that both Egypt and “Europe” should compensate for the United States for the operation. “If Europe does not remunerate, then what? If the United States successfully restores freedom of navigation to a great cost, there must be an additional economic benefit in exchange,” SM wrote.
There was no official request from the European Union officials for the United States to carry out the attack in Yemen, they were simply informed, they said a European diplomat and a European official who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss diplomatic conversations. Nor have there been conversations with high -level legislators about remuneration, according to the diplomat.
The apparent contempt by the government officials of the security protocols by maintaining a conversation that included operational details in a commercial chat application, although encrypted, raised the concern that Russia and China could be attentive.
“Putin was left without work: it no longer makes sense to spy,” he wrote in X Nathalie Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament, stating that the leaks now came from the Americans themselves. “It no longer makes sense to destroy Ukraine, Trump will take care of it.”
The comment of the exchange is the most recent blow to one of the most history of the world, which cost generations to build and strengthen, but that the Trump government has managed to weaken in just a few weeks.
“It is clear that the transatlantic relationship, as it was, has ended, and there is, in the best case, an indifferent disdain,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute of International Affairs of Italy, who previously advised a high position in the EU. “And in the worst case, and closer to that, there is an active attempt to underminate Europe.”
The European Union is, in many ways, the antithesis of the principles that Trump and their colleagues defend. The block is built around the acceptance of international trade based on standards. He has been at the forefront of climate -related regulation and protection of social networks users.
Europe has been on alert since Vance delivered a speech at a security conference in Munich last month in which he questioned European values and their democracy and shocked European leaders. He then warned that Europe ran the risk of a “civilization suicide.”
If the relationship between the United States and Europe were merely transactional, it would be relatively easy for Europeans to spend more in the army and give Trump some kind of victory, said François Heisbourg, French analyst and former defense official.
But in Vance’s speech in which he attacked European democracy in Munich, not to mention the new filtered exchange, contempt for Europe goes beyond transactions.
“Vance was quite clear: we didn’t share the same values,” said Heisbourg.
He and others, such as Anna Sauerbrey, editor of the International Section of Die Zeit, pointed out that the explicit requirement of a payment, instead of only political and military support, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, was new. In addition, he ignored the fact that “the United States depends on world trade,” he said, and that “France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have deployed ships in the region” with the same purpose. The Americans said, “they constantly ignore European efforts.”
China, for example, obtains most of its oil imports through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait and performs much of its export trade with Europe through the same sea route. But nobody is asking China to pay, Tocci said.
For months, Washington has been sending bad statements and actions towards Europe.
Trump has made it clear that he wants to acquire Greenland, semi -autonomous territory of Denmark, even when European leaders warn that they will defend territorial integrity. Usha Vance, Vance’s wife, and Mike Waltz, national security advisor, will visit the island this week, without being invited, according to their government, which has generated a restless response.
Trump has also warned several times that Europe must pay much more for its own defense and has threatened not to go to the aid of nations that do not pay enough, and also has been abruptly distanced from Ukraine. At the same time, he has presented plans to impose strong tariffs on Europe and has said that the European Union was created to “annoy” the United States.
Christel Schaldose, a Danish politics and member of the center -left of the European Parliament, said that the way in which the United States speaks lately of the EU in general “does not help.”
“Could we start talking as allies and not as enemies?” He said.
Even while European leaders try to maintain friendship, they are making efforts to try to strengthen their defense expenses, aware that it would be almost impossible to replace US military capabilities overnight.
They will meet Thursday in Paris to talk about Ukraine, and the Foreign Ministers of the OTAN will meet at the beginning of the month that comes to discuss the progress made.
They are also struggling to reach a commercial agreement with the United States: on Tuesday, the EU Commerce of Commerce went to Washington to talk to their American counterparts.
But with the increasingly hostile attitude of the United States towards Europe, the continent officials contemplate a future in which the precious relationship that extends through the Atlantic, a base on which decades of relative peace and prosperity have been built, might not be the same again.
“The international order is experiencing changes of a magnitude not seen since 1945,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s main diplomat, replicating a line of the preparation plan for the defense of the block, which seeks to help Europe to be more independent militarily.
Separating from the United States is a expensive perspective. The EU has already presented an initiative that could be worth 800 billion euros, about US $ 865 billion, to help European nations reach the desired military expenditure levels.
Even so, group chat filtration emphasizes why a divorce may be necessary: the United States is not the reliable ally that used to be, neither in rhetoric or in practice.
It is very unusual and possibly illegal that delicate military plans are discussed in a messaging application, instead of a safer medium.
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That contempt for normal security procedures “will make the allies very reluctant to share analysis and intelligence,” said Ben Hodges, excommanting of US forces in Europe. Unless there is an important change, people “will assume that you cannot trust the United States.”